GIF
A bitmap format enabling color images and animations on the web.
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmap image format developed by a team at CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite. Released on June 15, 1987, it became one of the first two image formats commonly used on websites, enabling color images and simple animations on the early World Wide Web.
- type
- Bitmap image format
- developer
- CompuServe (team led by Steve Wilhite)
- release_date
- June 15, 1987
- color_depth
- Up to 8 bits per pixel (256 colors from 24-bit RGB)
- compression
- Lempel–Ziv–Welch (LZW) lossless compression
- versions
- 87a (original) and 89a (enhanced, 1989)
- pronunciation_dispute
- Soft g (as in 'gin') vs. hard g (as in 'gift')
Lore & Background
CompuServe introduced GIF on June 15, 1987, to provide a color image format for file downloading areas, replacing an earlier black-and-white run-length encoding format. The format became popular because its LZW compression allowed fairly large images to be downloaded reasonably quickly even with slow modems. The original version, 87a, already supported multiple images in a stream. In 1989, CompuServe released version 89a, adding support for animation delays, transparent background colors, storage of application-specific metadata, and text labels. The two versions can be distinguished by the first six bytes of the file: 'GIF87a' or 'GIF89a'.
Reader's Guide
GIF's significance lies in its role as a foundational image format for the early web, enabling color graphics and simple animations at a time when bandwidth was limited. Its lossless LZW compression made it efficient for line art, logos, and images with solid areas of color, though its 256-color palette limitation made it less suitable for photographs. The format's ability to store multiple images in one file, accompanied by control data, became extensively used for web animations. While usage has declined for space and quality reasons—often replaced by PNG for static images and MP4 for videos—short video clips are still commonly termed 'GIFs'. The format's legacy includes sparking the development of the PNG standard due to patent controversies, and its pronunciation remains a subject of public debate, with Steve Wilhite publicly advocating for the soft-g pronunciation at the 2013 Webby Awards.
Did You Know?
- The GIF format was released on June 15, 1987, by CompuServe.
- The pronunciation of GIF has been disputed since the 1990s, with Steve Wilhite stating the soft-g pronunciation was intended to echo the peanut butter brand Jif.
- In 2012, the American wing of the Oxford University Press recognized GIF as a verb meaning 'to create a GIF file' and voted it their word of the year.
- The optional interlacing feature allowed a partially downloaded image to be somewhat recognizable, helping users decide whether to abort the download.
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