VK (short for its original name VKontakte; Russian: ВКонтакте, meaning…

VK (short for its original name VKontakte; Russian: ВКонтакте, meaning InContact) is a Russian online social media and social networking service based in Saint Petersburg. VK is available in multiple languages but it is predominantly used by Russian speakers. VK users can message each other publicly or privately, create groups, public pages, and events; share and tag images, audio, and video; and play browser-based games.
VKontakte was conceived in 2006 when Pavel Durov, creator of the popular student forum, met his former classmate Vyacheslav Mirilashvili in St. Petersburg after graduating from the Faculty of Philology at St Petersburg State University. Vyacheslav showed Durov the increasingly popular Facebook, after which the friends decided to create a new Russian social network.
VK was founded by Pavel Durov as VKontakte, Russia’s largest social network. Initially launched for beta testing in September, it quickly grew under Durov’s leadership, with the domain registered in October 2006.
Similar to many social networks, the platform’s fundamental features revolve around private messaging, sharing photos, posting status updates, and exchanging links with friends. VK also provides tools for administering online communities and managing celebrity pages.
The site allows its users to upload, search and stream media content, such as videos and music. VK features an advanced search engine, that allows complex queries for finding friends, as well as a real-time news search.
The company achieved rapid success, surpassing rival Odnoklassniki by 2008 and reaching 100 million users by 2014. Acquired by Mail.ru Group in 2014, VK expanded into a multifaceted ecosystem, including social networking, gaming, and e-commerce, serving over 90% of Russia’s internet audience.
The very first VKontakte logo was a simple and concise logo created by Pavel Durov. The standard font and unobtrusive colors, white and blue, made the logo minimalistic and recognizable. Later, it was simplified to a single letter "В" in the company's colors.
Back in 2012, Artemy Lebedev took on the task of creating a logo for VK. 403 logo designs were developed, each featuring a mix of the letters "V" and "К." However, Durov rejected all the designs and went back to his original logo, which Lebedev described as a "piece of utter shame."
In 2016, the logo was slightly refreshed. There is a certain resemblance to another social network, which may have been intentional.
The creation of the VKontakte logo in 2020 was a collaborative effort between VKontakte designers and TypeType studio. The logo features the word "VKontakte" in Cyrillic. It now uses the VK Sans font. The return to Cyrillic, which was removed in 2012, is a way to unify all the services, although it may seem nostalgic. This writing style makes it easier for users to recognize the services. The full version includes both the icon and the text, while the compact version only displays the icon. The icon itself has become brighter, more concise, and will look the same on all devices.
In 2021 the VKontakte social media platform decided to simplify its visual identity to just an emblem, so the logotype was removed from the composition. The primary logo of the social network today is a bright blue square with rounded angles and a heavy and stylized white “VK” monogram with the two capital letters sharing one vertical bar. All other bars are arched from the vertical one, creating a stylish and unique badge.