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Every good company needs a mascot, a way to anthropomorphize its spirit and services. Nintendo has Mario, Michelin has the Michelin Man, and Android has a small green robot. We don’t even need to describe it; you already know exactly what it looks like. But while the stories of Mario and Mr. Michelin are fairly obvious, how did the little green bot come to grace every Android phone and Android tablet? By accident, that’s how.
As with many mascots, the tiny green droid’s story began with a designer: Irina Blok. When she started working on the symbol, it was initially intended for developers. During an interview with The New York Times, Blok stated that Google gave her two primary instructions: that the mascot had to be a robot and had to be relatable. Blok told Business Insider, “How do you take Android and make it human?” The aforementioned New York Times interview claimed that she drew inspiration from the simple, rounded people you often find on bathroom doors and signs. However, Blok told Business Insider that this claim was incorrect. She said, “It was just about creating something that everybody could relate to and something that developers in particular liked.”
According to Blok — and an unnamed corroborating ex-Google employee — the symbol’s popularity grew organically. Few people knew she was working on it. One day, Blok submitted the tiny lime bot and open-sourced it, and it soon spread quickly. Developers who worked on the first version of Android adopted the symbol and started customizing it. What started as a lone green tic-tac with arms and legs became a legion with countless varieties.
Merchandising!
You can purchase plenty of worthwhile budget Android accessories, as well as phone accessories that are built to last, yet these add-ons don’t feature the mascot. But you can still buy physical versions of the robot. Like many mascots, Android’s small grass-colored automaton has escaped the 2D world and has been transformed into a physical collectible.
The official Google store sells plushes, figures, and stickers shaped like the robot in its basic form, but the mascot has also found a home in the hearts of art toy collectors. Companies such as Dead Zebra have released lines of Android mascot vinyl figures, often in blind boxes that contain the robot in a variety of getups — fitting since it began as an image that developers customized to their liking. Collections have included the pod-shaped, seafoam-shaded machine dressed in sportswear, cosplaying as famous scientists, and adopting random getups.
While releases have dried up in recent years, popularity for the mascot remains as strong as ever, even for the original version. In 2024, Google released a new bot figure, and it quickly sold out. The Dead Zebra store has several versions of the Android figure up for grabs, but if you want a specific variant, you may need to go searching, either by visiting local stores or scouring Google. Just be prepared to wade through a sea of Dragon Ball Z Android figure listings before you get to Google’s Android mascot.
