In the olden days, people studied the logos or icons of famous saints in churches. In a tech-based world, however, young people and increasingly adults are spending more and more time worshipping at the altar of their gaming PC’s, which are increasingly taking over consoles (like the old N-64) as their primary gaming machines.
The gaming industry, in turn, is overshadowing Hollywood, with many games becoming even more expensive than first-run movies to produce! Whether you’re a gamer or not, it’s hard to have a discussion about PC gaming without talking Minecraft and the ever evolving Minecraft Logo.
About Minecraft
It’s one of the most iconic games ever made, particularly in the PC realm, and it’s called Minecraft. We thought we should give you a little background for the non-gamers out there wondering why the Minecraft logo is such a big deal.
The original version, affectionately known by Minecraft devotees as “Minecraft Classic,” hit the public as a kind of “soft open.” It’s considered the second stage of the development cycle of Minecraft by some, but serious gamers still enjoy poking around its sandbox world.
It was pretty bare-bones, but still it was a necessary progression toward the versions of it popular today.
Notably, even though it was born as a personal computer game, Minecraft has enjoyed great success crossing over to and adapting to various console systems, making for easy, seamless play without all the hitches that non-gaming-nerds have little patience for resolving.
That said, the availability and compatibility of Minecraft’s array of versions, running the gamut of platforms and consoles, speaks to the popularity of the game.
Long story short, Minecraft is more than “a thing.” It’s a video gaming phenomenon, and it’s built upon a premise that doesn’t just allow for player creativity – it requires players to be creative. But don’t worry, it’s got plenty of outlets for all that gamer aggression with untold legions of opportunities to engage in combat!

Minecraft Logo Design & History
Most logos are designed to reflect a key value or characteristic of the game they represent, and the Minecraft logo is no different.
Precursor to the First Official Minecraft Logo: 2009
Crafted in 2009 by Hayden ‘Dock’ Scott-Baron, the original logo featured all-caps lettering with rounded edges which, when combined, served as a window to a kind of cartoon, concave open horizon. The sky is light blue with clouds within the letters of the word, “MINECRAFT,” and the grass is green; the clouds are slightly pixelated to convey the feel of a low-bit console system.
The First Official Minecraft Logo: 2009 Through 2011
Arguably the first “official version” of the Minecraft logo that would enter the American collective consciousness, the logo used by Minecraft in the game from 2009-2011 featured cobblestone.
This is significant because Minecraft is, if nothing else, a game about craft and creativity. Being a “sandbox” game, there’s not a linear path to success like the old Super Mario games, where each level predicably moves from left to right. In Minecraft, every gamer jumps into the sandbox of the game and builds; hence the cobblestone finish that game historians instantly recognize from the original version.
The Minecraft Logo Today: 2011 Through Present
Making its debut on Minecraft Beta 1.4, the new logo released by Mojang is distinguished from the first official logo by a face comprising the top inside part of the “A.” Compared with the first official logo, the quality of the new graphic sees a bit of an upgrade, receiving some touch-ups that make the stone comprising the letters in “MINECRAFT” appear cracked and thus more realistic.

Alternate Versions of the Logo
In addition to the traditional Minecraft logo, multiple copycat versions have also been released to celebrate each new iteration of the classic on every serious gamer’s hard drive. We’ll highlight some of these variants of the original here.
Microsoft Bedrock Edition
Microsoft has released a new logo version with the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft. The logo does not read, “Minecraft: Bedrock Edition” but rather sticks with the basic “Minecraft” with no subtitle, perhaps because the bedrock edition is a slick marketing way of conveying, “basic” or “foundational” edition. It’s also been called the “Bedrock Version,” the “Bedrock Engine,” or “Bedrock Codebase.”
This Bedrock Edition is merely a minor variation of the Mojang version previously discussed. It’s differentiated from the Mojang-released 2011 version by greater depth of the stones in the shadowy third-dimension mostly in the bottom portion of the logo. Cracks in the stone also get lighter, compared to the borders of the letters, for easier readability.
Java Edition
No discussion about the evolution of the Mindcraft logo is complete without one of the latest additions to the Mindcraft logo family: the “Java Edition” version. The Java Edition version sees the word “MINECRAFT” get proportionally smaller compared with the Bedrock version to make room for the subtitle, “Java Edition” in all caps beneath the title.
The Minecraft Logo in Pop Culture
With every phenomenon as big as Minecraft, there are inevitably copycats. And with every copycat, there’s another fan artist, another fan-coder, another dreamer coming up with their original homage to the Minecraft lifestyle. We’ll examine a few ways that the world at large has paid tribute to this god of modern games and the ubiquitous Minecraft logo.
“MINECON EARTH”
A play on the traditional “MINECRAFT” logo, the “MINECON EARTH” logo is featured on the “splash screen” graphic of the online streaming channel where you can watch MINECON Earth. The logo features a variation of the “MINECON” logo, with “EARTH” beneath it in similar 3D lettering.
Above it, a virtual Rubick’s Cube of the Minecraft world spins its various layers: a compelling animated infographic if there ever was one! Behind it, a twinkling sky flies by.
Blockify Everything!
At Minecon Earth described above, a convention for Minecraft fanatics, attendees often show off their favorite renditions of pop culture icons, blockified Minecraft-style like the letters in the logo. One of these famous scenes, prominently displayed on the Minecon Earth Web site, is the cliff scene from Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas.
Another blockified Minecon Earth-featured image is that of blockified pandas. Minecon Earth and Microsoft are involved in a collaborative effort related to these images to conserve panda life, where players are encouraged to place bamboo – which pandas eat, in Minecraft.
Minecraft Blockified Brand Penetration and Merchandise Licensing
But the fun doesn’t stop there. Other images pulled directly out of pop culture and blockified in the style of the Minecraft logo include Disney’s Cinderella Castle, the Conan O’Brien Show, and many others you’ll recognize.
Much of these images, blockified just like the Minecraft logo, make their way onto the shelves of huge retailers like Target in the form of tee shirts, plush toys, and lanyards. Someone’s definitely cashing in on Minecraft licensing and merch! One thing is certain; it’s a sure sign that Minecraft is a major cultural phenomenon, inspired by the way the very title is blockified in the iconic logo.

Minecraft Logo Maker
Just to give you an idea of just how obsessed Minecraft fans are, they’re not content to let the original logo be. They want to design their own “Minecraft logos!” Thus, a cottage industry has sprung up of various customizable Minecraft logo-makers for the serious enthusiast. Customers or visitors to the various Minecraft logo maker Web sites have the option of creating various iterations of the logo complete with their own names.
Other variables these superfans of Minecraft culture can set include the color of various elements in the logo, like, for example, the water, resulting in a kind of personalized crest. It’s usually not free to create a customized Minecraft-style logo, so like the merchandise available, these customizable logos will take your money any way you’re willing to give it to them, including via bitcoin and credit card.
Minecraft users are so dedicated to the Minecraft brand that they want the world to know they are Minecraft players: and there’s no better way to do that than by sporting your very own merch with your very own customizable stickers, hats, or you-name-it, all with that classic, Minecraft logo-inspired, “blockify everything!” art that screams “MINECRAFT!”
Conclusion
Minecraft is a brand that is focused on its base of super-fans, and nowhere is this conveyed better than in the famous Minecraft logo. Here, we’ve covered some basics about Minecraft in case you’ve been living under a rock.
We’ve gone into the history of the Minecraft logo, including a pre-release beta version which was never really used, plus the original and its descendant logo. We’ve also covered some variations of the logo used for various purposes and editions.
We’ve covered how the logo’s style has become intermingled with other manner of pop culture. We’ve also covered how even you can make your own Minecraft logo and how legions of block-thirsty Minecraft fans have done just that. The only thing left for you to do is to start blockifying something.