HTML5 has almost officialised their logo

The W3C has released a bright and shiny new logo for the HTML5 standard, with this to be officialised in the near future.

The W3C consortium makes recommendations on Web standards. In 2007, the W3C picked up on the work already started on HTML5 three years earlier by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group and are now looking to soon finalise the specification.

When they first took responsibility for it, HTML5 was still in its draft stage, although this fortunately didn’t prevent developers from integrating it into their browsers. Among the most popular modern web browsers, Internet Explorer 9 will be the next, and last (following the others) to integrate this standard. The W3C indicates that HTML5 will reference a range of technologies with various degrees of adoption and standardisation, with "it's not necessary to wait until everything is finalised before it can start to be used".

The W3C has now provided HTML5 with a visual identity so that a user community can be built around its logo. This is not the official logo, but it should become so depending on the reception that it receives. If it is not widely accepted by users, it will revert to an official character by the end of the first quarter of 2011.

The World Wide Web Consortium states "A number of people have already asked "What does the logo represent?" We intend for it to be an all-purpose banner for HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and other technologies that constitute an open web platform. The logo does not have a specific meaning; it is not meant to imply conformance or validity, for example. The logo represents "the Web platform" in a very general sense".
The logo is published under the Creative Commons 3.0 By license and is presented on a dedicated page where it is also possible to choose the logo with different aspects, create badges with your choice of eight domains and technologies primarily used on a site (offline and storage mode, multimedia, graphical effects…) and even purchase t-shirts.