YouTube uses a red rounded rectangle containing a white right-pointing play triangle as its logo.
The play button reflects the website’s central purpose: watching and sharing online video. YouTube was created in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, and its first video, “Me at the zoo,” was uploaded by Karim on April 23, 2005.
YouTube’s visual identity has changed several times, but the play-button symbol has remained its most recognizable element. In 2017, the company introduced a redesigned wordmark and placed the play icon to the left of the word “YouTube,” rather than embedding the button-like shape around the word.
People sometimes confuse the logo with those of Vimeo or Dailymotion, which are also video platforms. Vimeo traditionally uses a blue wordmark, while Dailymotion has used a blue-and-white visual identity. The white triangle in YouTube’s mark is a direct visual cue for playback.