By Ken Vermette cc by sa
Have you noticed the awesome revamp of the OpenStreetMap logo?
The logo was created by Ken Vermette, who was kind enough to answer a few questions about his design.
“I made the logo a few months ago when I first found out about OpenStreetMap, I’ve always been a supporter of open projects; I can’t afford to donate, and outside of PHP I can’t really program, so I do odd graphics instead when I have extra time. I don’t think it was 2 hours after discovering OSM that I had started sketching designs. Ultimately, I just really liked the original logo so I didn’t change the design and aimed to try remastering it.
I was actually quite surprised about it being used [as the new logo] – I had posted my work to the OSM lists, and I thought it had been declined or forgotten. While sitting on the logo the question came in asking if it was creative-commons licensed, which it was, and next thing I knew it was on the website!
I need to admit I’m quite humbled, so much work has been put into OpenStreetMap it staggers you once you realize the scope of the project. People ride their bikes, plot trees, point out parks and define roads to make this work. It always pains me when someone looks at an open source project and rules it out because it’s “unattractive”, especially when it’s such a great project. I want to keep refining the logo to be on par with the effort put into OSM, so people could see it for the incredible resource that it is; I could never do it though, I’d be working forever!
Anyway, I’m just glad that I could help out – I’d really like to thank every OSM mapper and contributor out there, drawing an icon seems dwarfed compared to the effort of mapping the world.”
Ken, we thank you for your contribution to OpenStreetMap. We all know it isn’t just any logo. 🙂
This post is also available in: French
