The Best Uses of HTML5 Logos

Clearly display your interest in and use of HTML5 on your website with a logo. This lets visitors know you are familiar with the most up-to-date code on the internet and spreads awareness of this important upgrade.

This all may be a bit strange to you if you’ve found your way to this article and you aren’t familiar with HTML5. If this is the case, you’ve happened to stumble upon the heartbeat of the internet. HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, and it is the standard markup language for website and web app creation. Many web developers use HTML along with Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS as it is most often seen, as well as the language JavaScript to create dynamic and responsive web designs for your browsing pleasure. It is the web developer’s role to make the experience a pleasant one for you, the user. Your web browsers then receives these receives these HTML files from a server where the files are stored and turns them into multimedia sites for you to interact with. As you may now have extrapolated, HTML5 is the fifth version of the Hypertext Markup Language, and it was published in October of 2014.

After learning that HTML is basically the foundation upon which the modern internet is built, you’ve likely become absolutely ecstatic and wish to spread the news! You’re in luck. The most recent version of HTML has a logo that allows you to sport your enthusiasm for the building blocks of the internet. Or, if you’re a web designer yourself, you can easily pin the logo on your page to proudly state that you’re using the standard for modern web development.

In January of 2011 the World Wide Web Consortium introduced a logo that represents interest in the use of HTML5. While inclusion of this new logo on a website does not imply conformance to a certain standard as is the case with other badges that have been released by the World Wide Web Consortium, the logo became official in April of 2011, and was intended to identify the use of many open web technologies, such as CSS, SVG, WOFF, and HTML5. However this umbrella association of other technologies led to some contention regarding misuse and miscommunication.

Currently, the World Wide Web Consortium’s own website states that, “This logo represents HTML5, the cornerstone for modern Web applications.” Though a logo for an open technology is somewhat odd, its implementation has helped bring awareness to the community of people who use HTML in their work, creatively and professionally. The logo is more than simply a representation of a brand. It’s a badge that allows people in the community to recognize each other, and as the World Wide Web Consortium words it, the badge is a “pennant for progress.” So for those developers who use the markup language, we’ve got a few ideas on how you can best sport your HTML5 logos.

One of the main uses for the HTML5 logo is to place it on your website that has been created and designed using HTML5. This is a great way to showcase your up-to-date web design skills without being overtly boastful. Proving that you have the know-how and capabilities to keep up with the current markup language trend can be a great way to indicate your prowess to prospective employers or clients.

Just placing HTML5 logos does not verify compliance with a certain standard, and you shouldn’t put it on your webpage if the site wasn’t created with HTML5 or doesn’t incorporate HTML5 elements. However, embedding one on your page can be a fantastic way to let others know that you take your design seriously, and that you are interested in finding new ways to use HTML5 in your work in order to applying best practices and improve the web with the most current tools at your disposal.

The World Wide Web Consortium has a number of different shirts, stickers, and other HTML5 gear for your perusal so that you can proudly sport your HTML5 logos in any occasion. In addition, one of our favorite parts of the World Wide Web Consortium’s logo is that it was crafted under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

 This means that you and everyone else are able to use the logo in any way that you see fit, so you can make your own shirt, sticker or anything else with the logo's design without having to worry about running into copyright issues. This includes changing the logo’s size, color, text, etc. in any way.

The World Wide Web Consortium has downloadable files right on their website to help you get the HTML5 logo out there and show the world that you’re proud to use the most recent version of the markup language. Under the Creative Commons license, you can reimagine or reinterpret the HTML5 logo in any way that you wish, and in fact, the World Wide Web Consortium encourages you to display and modify the design to show your support.

Their website even provides links to further reading about the license and gives a clear attribution to include in the case of a derivative work.

Along with the large orange HMTL5 badge logo, there are also eight other small icon logos that were introduced for the World Wide Web Consortium's technological classes. These logos represent all of the current elements of web applications and websites. While these are not HTML5 Logos, as these technology features are not defined in the specification of HTML5, many HTML5 websites take advantage of implementing these technologies as well.

Semantics is the study of meaning in linguistics and logic, and semantics are a focal point of HTML5. With a revisited set of tags; RDFa, or Resource Description Framework in Attributes; microformats, and microdata enable you to create a more useful web for end users. Semantics are represented by three upward facing chevrons on the World Wide Web Consortium’s website.

The HTML5 App Cache, Indexed DB, Local Storage, and the File API specifications allow web apps to work even if there is no internet access and can also help them to start faster when there is.

With the Geolocation API, you can present features and user experiences that are fresh and aware of the device that they are displayed on. Innovations in device access, from audio and video input access to cameras, microphones, and local data-like events, contacts, or tilt orientation, are being developed and implemented. Device access is represented by a stylized television set similar to Apple’s Airplay icon.

Web Socket and Server-Sent Events are creating more efficient connectivity. This means faster games and more chats in real time. Both server and client are receiving data more efficiently than they ever have in the past.

HTML5 brings both audio and video to the forefront, making them easy to incorporate into your sites and applications. Multimedia is represented by a stylized movie clapboard on the World Wide Web Consortium’s website.

SVG, WEbGL, Canvas, and CSS3’s 3D features grab the attention of your users with incredible visual effects that are rendered natively right in your web browser. These are iconized as a stylistic cube logo.

Dynamic content and web applications see a boost from technologies and techniques like XML Http Request 2 and Web Workers, helping to ensure that no user is ever eyeing the clock. HTML5 performance and integration is represented by a cogwheel emblem on the World Wide Web Consortium’s website.

CSS3 is the third version of Cascading Style Sheets and now delivers an even larger range of stylization and effects. The use of CSS3 supplements your web application with losing any semantic structure or performance. WOFF, or Web Open Font Format, also allows for flexibility in your typography and more control than you’ve ever seen from the web before. CSS3’s logo mimics the HTML5 badge and turns the pentagonal shape into a stylized three. 

The playfully named Badge Builder 5000 is a tool that is located on the World Wide Web Consortium’s website that allows you to customize an HTML badge to include on your own HTML5-powered site.

The Badge Builder 5000 allows checkboxes for offline and storage; device access; connectivity/realtime; multimedia; graphics, 3D, and effects; performance and integration; semantics, and CSS3/styling. Each of these is depicted by their symbols as described above in a gray banner beneath the HTML5 logo. 

Once you have selected all of the technologies that are used on your webpage, simply select between vertical and horizontal for the display of your new badge. The Badge Builder 5000 will then generate an anchor that you can copy and paste into your page’s .html file to pin the badge, displaying HTML5 logos on your website.

While this isn’t your usual “Best Of” article with ordered lists that incrementally tell you each product is greater than the last, we still believe that it is important to bring accuracy in our work.

In this way, we reviewed public information about the technologies associated with these HTML5 logos and believe that these are the some of the best ways to use the World Wide Web Consortium’s logos. Sporting the logos in any way not only can provide benefits to you but also furthers the reach of HTML5 and pushes the online community to keep making advancements and to keep being innovative. 

We believe that offering ways to help display the HTML5 logos is a fantastic way for the symbol to bring not only attention to HTML, but also to other growing technologies in order to unite modern developers under one sign to call your own.

For those who may not have the technological or creative prowess to make use of all of the freebies that the World Wide Web Consortium’s web page has to offer to construct something of their own, shirts and full zip hoodies are also available for sale. The men’s shirt is a heather gray color and can even be seen being worn by Martin Starr as the character Gilfoyle in HBO’s tech comedy Silicon Valley.

The women’s shirt is a light blue color with a contoured fit that displays the HTML5 logo on the front and the words, “I’ve seen the future. It’s in my browser,” on the back. The World Wide Web Consortium also offers a unisex gray hoodie with the HTML5 logo on the left breast and the other technologies’ logos displayed around the hood opening.

If you happen to have the know-how, grabbing the design from the World Wide Web Consortium’s web page is simple, as all of the associated HTML5 logos are available in SVG and PNG format, and there is even a sticker template for those who have the capability to print on adhesive stock. No matter your case, if you would like to display the any of these logos, the World Wide Web Consortium’s website is your go-to spot for all things HTML5.

YouTube, Internet Explorer Test Drive, Microsoft’s Beauty of the Web, HTML5 Boilerplate, Can I Use?  HTML5 Doctor, Modernizr, and html5rocks.com are already proudly displaying the logo along with myriad other websites. Internet giants like YouTube are representing the power of the open internet and what many can accomplish under a single welcoming banner.

 Incorporating new technologies into your work and keeping up with the latest advancements is not simply a trend. While some implementations may not last as long as others, this is what keeps the internet moving forward and will sustain the usable and increasingly efficient web of information that it has become.

You can visit the World Wide Web Consortium’s website to grab your own pennant of progress, whether it’s on a sticker, a hoodie, or made with the Badge Builder 5000. Pin your pride in your work wherever you go, because you are the one keeping the internet moving forward.