Tutanota Logo PNG
The Tutanota logo reflects the company’s desire to develop and confidently move into the future, despite obstacles around the corner. It also reflects the long process of encrypting information, as the mail service provides maximum privacy for users and their letters.
Tutao GmbH was founded in 2011 in Hanover by developers Arne Möhle and Matthias Pfau, who had met while studying at FHWD. Their work grew from discussions about data security and the limits of ordinary email. The name Tutanota came from the Latin words “tuta” and “nota,” meaning “secure message.”
The first official email through the service was sent on March 24, 2014, after a long testing period. Its launch followed Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosures about NSA surveillance, including XKeyscore, which gave encrypted email a new public relevance. Tutanota positioned itself against large providers such as Gmail, which relied on email content analysis for advertising, and became the first email provider with automatic end-to-end encryption for all users.
In 2014, the source code was published on GitHub, and in 2015, the service left beta. By March 2017, Tutanota had more than 2 million users. In August 2018, it became the first email provider with an app on F-Droid. It removed Google Cloud Messaging and replaced it with its own Server-Sent Events system. The update also added search, two-factor authentication, and a redesigned interface.
The service was blocked in Egypt in 2019 and in Russia in 2020, shortly after ProtonMail faced similar restrictions. Users were advised to use Tor or a VPN. In November 2023, Tutanota rebranded as Tuta and moved from tutanota.com to tuta.com, reflecting its expansion into encrypted calendar and contacts. That same month, the company denied claims that it was linked to Five Eyes surveillance. In March 2024, Tuta introduced post-quantum encryption through TutaCrypt.
Meaning and History
Tutanota protects user data with end-to-end encryption. The programmers who developed the email platform place a high value on privacy. They came at it in different ways: some of them cooperated with human rights activists and saw the consequences of online surveillance; some of them fought for freedom of speech and for the right to express their opinion without fear of being punished; others were impressed by Edward Snowden’s story that every step we take in the digital world does not go unnoticed.
The creators of Tutanota decided to make the right to privacy public so that it would not be the prerogative of only rich people. That is why their postal service not only encrypts incoming messages but also ensures that it cannot even read them itself. In addition, it integrates a protected address book; that is, only the user has access to the list of addressees.
What is Tutanota?
Tutanota is one of the few secure email services that keep all emails encrypted. It was created in 2011 when Tutao GmbH was founded. Its team of fourteen developers is based in Germany.
The name of the service is a neologism formed from two bases: “tuta” and “nota.” The first part means “safe” in Latin, and the second part means “note” or “note.” The combination of the two words can be interpreted as a “secure message,” which is exactly what Tutanota does. Due to its encryption system and strong security, the German email service has been blocked in Russia and Egypt.
The private webmail provider appeared in 2011. Since then, it has used a recognizable logo depicting a road or, in another version, a winding river. It is formed by a negative white space within a red-and-maroon gradient square. The designers positioned it at the bottom to stretch upward toward the imaginary horizon. The line gradually narrows and disappears just above the square’s midpoint. This shape hints at its infinity.
On the right side of the icon is the black inscription “Tutanota.” The authors of the word mark made the first “T” capitalized, and all the other letters were left lowercase. In doing so, they visually divided the word into two Latin bases: “tuta” and “nota.” They used a similar sans-serif font, but the first part uses thin glyphs, and the second part uses bolder glyphs.
Font and Colors
The Tutanota badge featuring the road symbol conveys perspective, freedom, and open, unlimited possibilities. The white stripe along three sides is enclosed within a square, signifying security and safety. The quadrangle serves as a barrier to those seeking access to users’ data.
The Tutanota logo has a complex typographic system because it has two versions of the same font. The first four letters consist of thin strokes. Their typeface is generally similar to Impallari Type’s Libre Franklin Thin, except that the “a” has the bottom of the vertical line slightly curved upward. The second half of the name is bolder, the only thing that sets it apart from the first half.
The inscription is traditionally black and on a white background. But for color, it is complemented by an emblem with a maroon-red gradient, darkened at the bottom. The space inside the object is used as negative space, forming an abstract road.