The HTML5 Logo & Why You Shouldn’t Use It
Last week the W3C came out with the HTML5 logo. The logo itself is actually really nice looking (and yes I want the t-shirt!), but unfortunately the neat design is now worthless.
Yup the W3C decided that it wanted to lump in every new technology with HTML5, making it seem as if you couldn’t use one without the other. It even added a nice little description explaining what this logo was for and specifically stated that items like CSS3 were apart of the “HTML5 family of technologies“:
The logo is a general-purpose visual identity for a broad set of open web technologies, including HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and others. In addition to the HTML5 logo there are icons for eight high level technology classes enabled by the HTML5 family of technologies. The icons can be used to highlight more specific abilities, such as offline, graphics, or connectivity.
Not sure when CSS3 and everything else became a part of HTML5. You’d think of all places, the W3C would be against using the “buzzword” version of HTML5 and would instead aim to educate the masses why javascript, SVG, CSS3 and others are not HTML5.
While it’s tempting to jump on the bandwagon of a trend that’s fronted by such a cool looking logo, it’s dangerous. Remember the times when clients thought that anything that moved had to be Ajax? This time, it’s much, much worse.
The problem with supporting something as seemingly innocent as a logo? As developers we often complain about the lack of education among our clients. we fume and fuss when they disregard our advice about usability, or when they demand something crazy simply because “it’s cool”.
If we support and use this logo, are we any better? How can we expect our clients to be educated in the technologies we use if we help spread the disinformation?
If the client see the logo on your sites, and then reads about how everything new today is HTML5, what do you think he’s going to expect when he approaches you for work?
Of course, it is just a logo afterall, why does it matter if we lump everything into HTML5? Does it really matter as long as we, the developers, know the truth?
Ask yourself that question again the next time a client demands an Ajax dropdown or an HTML5 “design”.
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?
I think the W3C is trying to ‘own’ HTML5 by creating the logo. It seems like they’re trying to get ahead of the curve and label technologies to make them more mainstream. I mean even my brother commented on the logo. At least it’s getting the name out there. I think it’s our job as devs to educate people about what HTML5 actually is and what can be done with it.
My two cents! Great article Amber, keep it up!
I think the logo by itself is awesome, it’s just sad they decided to cave in and use the buzzword version of HTML5.
Very good point Amber! Communication is key and in this era of bandwagon technologies it’s so important to distinguish the function of each, not group them for the sake of popularity.
Thanks, Sarah!
Even funnier is the fact that WHATWG dropped the “5″ two days after the W3C unveiled the logo. The new standard is now simply called “HTML”.
http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2011/01/25/html5-is-dead-long-live-html
I think they actually did it on purpose because of the W3C logo.
This makes complete sense, that was the whole reason behind dropping the “5″ from the doctype. It’s just going to be a progressive language.
Actually, late last week, the FAQ for the logo’s site was changed:
http://www.w3.org/html/logo/faq.html
You’ll notice the question that says “What Does the Logo Represent?” now has a different answer from what they originally announced. It says, “This logo represents HTML5, the cornerstone for modern Web applications.” (And nothing more).
That change was in response to the outcry from people like Jeremy Keith and Tantek Celik. For more on this see this article (written by someone involved in the logo’s release), and the comments from Keith and others:
http://schepers.cc/insidevoice
Of course, because of all the hype surrounding the logo, very few people realize that the logo’s definition has now changed. That’s unfortunate. I still won’t be using it because I don’t think a logo will help increase awareness.
So, technically speaking, the logo is no longer being branded as a “catch-all” representation of all those technologies, as was originally announced. Those other technologies are represented by the smaller supplementary icons, if the developer chooses to include them.
Yea I saw that as well when it came out, but the article was already written. Still not sure if I’d support it even though they’ve backtracked it. It still angers me that the very company that pushes semantics and coding standards would do something like that.
Yeah, and it’s unfortunate that most people don’t realize its stated purpose changed. The original hype always outweighs any corrections, and that’s why they should have released the logo privately to a number of experts first, before going public.
I think in the end, everything will be just fine.