Hi everyone,

We’re excited to share some new updates on plans for Wikipedia’s 15th birthday.

TL;DR: We’ve designed a mark, Wikipedia 15, to be used, remixed, and built on by the community as we celebrate Wikipedia’s 15th birthday.

Wikipedia 15 is a design concept offered to help Wikimedians across the globe celebrate Wikipedia’s 15th birthday. But it’s not just about celebrating Wikipedia. It’s about celebrating the birth of an idea, an idea that helped shape the free and open knowledge movement. In the fifteen years Wikipedia has existed, we've all come together to create something worth celebrating, something worth protecting, and even something worth arguing about. Wikipedia is a living, breathing collection of the people’s knowledge. Every day we build it, every day we protect it, and every day we enjoy it. We use it in every part of our daily lives. From looking up something we're curious about, to winning an argument, to settling a bar bet, to cramming for a test, to planning a trip, to learning a new skill. Wikipedia is a cherished public trust. It's part of how we live now. 28% of the planet has never known a world without Wikipedia.

Let's take this year to celebrate not just the fundamental ways Wikipedia has changed how we learn, but also the small, joyous ways it's enriched our lives. Knowledge is joy!

This year's mark is meant to be fun. And lighthearted. It can move! Or it can be still. You can make it what you want to be. You can add objects that are meaningful to you and where you live and what you do. You can use objects to tell a story of what Wikipedia means to you.

How to use the Wikipedia 15 mark

The mark consists of two basic elements:

• an image/or animated group of images

• text below

Other than keeping things in that order, you can reuse, remix, and enjoy the mark in a variety of ways.

How to localize

We've provided a core set of 27 images, but we hope you add your own and mix them in. You can use this in any graphics editing program, including Inkscape, which is free and open source. You can add multiple images and make an animated GIF! The words “Wikipedia 15” can be replaced with any localized example in any language. The typeface we used is OpenSans, free from Google Fonts and freely licensed under version 2.0 of the Apache License.

Taking the Wikipedia 15 mark further

The Wikipedia 15 mark can be used to produce celebratory merchandise, identify special web pages or other digital content, make posters or banners, name tags, birthday cakes, and much more. The designers developed this sample guide (below) to show some of the possible uses of the marks. Be creative and share your concepts and ideas in the gallery on the Wikipedia 15 meta page.

Please make them to share! But please do not use the name "Wikipedia" to sell any items, or for other uses without checking the trademark policy.

The 27 images and guidelines for using the mark can be found under the material section of the Wikipedia 15 meta page. A huge thank you to our design team, Mule, who helped design and develop this fun and inspiring creation. We can’t wait to see how you and your Wikimedia community use this mark!

Please feel free to direct any questions to Sam Lien (slien@wikimedia.org) and Joe Sutherland (jsutherland@wikimedia.org).

All the best,

Sam and Joe

(of the WMF Communications Team)