Google developer shares original Android mascot artwork

We’ve seen Google’s Android mascot dressed in a number of different outfits over the years to commemorate each new operating system release. Visions of delicious jelly beans, an ice cream sandwich and gingerbread immediately come to mind but odds are you’ve never seen the original Android mascot until now.

Meet Dandroid, brainchild of Google employee Dan Morrill. He is responsible for creating the very first mascot while working in Android developer relations before the operating system was released.

In a recent Google+ post, Morrill said the robots were designed to spice up a presentation he was working on for an internal developer launch way back in 2007. They enjoyed a brief bit of popularity amongst the design team but were ultimately scrapped in favor of the mascot we are familiar with today.

In his post, Morrill was happy to share the images, saying he figured everyone could experience the thrill of terror at what might have been if it hadn’t been for another design that eventually got the nod to go public. The current mascot, known as Bugdroid, was created by designer Irina Blok.

Interestingly enough, Morrill also pointed out that early versions of the robot mascot were named after famous robots instead of tasty treats. For example, one robot was internally known as R2-D2 which conveniently stood for Release to Developer 2. The problem with that, as you can already see, is that the majority of names that would come up under that scheme would be trademarked.