The Winner of the Linux T-shirt Design Contest Is...

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 01 Jul 2011

2011 is the year when The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, celebrates the 20th anniversary of the open-source operating system. Among other things, The Linux Foundation is celebrating by running a T-shirt design contest – which has just come to an end.

More than 130 designs have been submitted to The Linux Foundation as part of the T-shirt design contest. The foundation went through the submissions and picked the 6 best ones – the finalists (and it published the list here). The public got to vote on their favorite design and based on those votes, The Linux Foundation selected a winner.

And now, the moment everyone’s been waiting for: the winner of the 20th Anniversary of Linux T-shirt design contest is, drum rolls please Sweden-based designer Kim Blanche. Her winning design is called “Flying Penguin”; the idea behind the design is that “after twenty years of hard work, this penguin has managed to take off. Tux is now sailing smoothly above the competition into a very bright future." You can check out the “Flying Penging” design at the bottom of this article.

Indian-born Kim Blanche (she moved to Sweden as a young child) started an artistic career only a couple of years ago. She left a career in nursing to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming an artist. The fact that she won the Anniversary of Linux T-shirt design contest is definitely a boost for her career.

Kim Blanche explains how she came up with the “Flying Penguin” design:
“When I read the terms for the competition, I thought the picture should be joyful and fit for a very happy birthday. I started with the text and I came up with the idea of making the numbers similar to the style of the Linux Foundation logo. After that, Tux came flying in my head with the balloon. And that was it. Simply joyful and suitable for a happy birthday! Then I realized how hard it must be for a penguin to actually fly. That’s the connection with The Flying Penguin. The picture is clear about Tux: he’s heading for a very bright future!”

Kim’s design will be used as the official LinuxCon T-shirt and the official 20th Anniversary of Linux T-shirt. For winning the competition she will get to attend LinuxCon and the LinuxCon Gala in Vancouver this August. LinuxCon 2011 will take place between the 17th and 19th of August in Vancouver. Linus Torvalds will be there and so will several other top figures from the Linux world, like Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, and Ubuntu’s Technical Architect Allison Randal.

“I’m very glad to get the opportunity to go to Vancouver for the LinuxCon, as I of course intend to do,” said Kim. “This will be an experience of a lifetime. Me and my fiancé are also planning to spend some time in the city and the surroundings afterwards. It will be a wonderful journey!”




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