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W3C narrows 'HTML5' logo meaning to HTML5

The Web standards group clarifies that its HTML5 logo really is just for HTML5. To tout your site's use of WOFF, SVG, and CSS, there are smaller, gray icons.

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The World Wide Web Consortium, faced with derision that its new HTML5 logo represented a broader set of Web technologies, has pared down the logo's scope.

"Since the main logo was intended to represent HTML5, the cornerstone of modern Web applications, I have updated the FAQ to state this more clearly. I trust that the updated language better aligns with community expectations," W3C spokesman Ian Jacobs said Friday in a blog post.

HTML5 logo
The new HTML5 logo and the accompanying icons for related tech. W3C

Indeed, the HTML5 logo FAQ now states in no uncertain terms: "This logo represents HTML5, the cornerstone for modern Web applications." Those who want to promote related technologies--Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Web Open Font Format (WOFF), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), and Web Sockets, for example--can use the accompanying but subordinate icons.

HTML5 has become something of a marketing buzzword--to some Web developers' chagrin, since it sometimes stands for so much more than the next version of Hypertext Markup Language that's being standardized at the W3C and at its longtime home, the Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group (WHATWG).

Indeed, after the W3C released the HTML5 logo last week, Ian Hickson, editor of the specification at both W3C and WHATWG, moved up the schedule to drop use of HTML5 in favor of just HTML. That's only happening at the WHATWG, though he'd like to see it at the W3C as well.