Congratulations to Our T-shirt Design Contest Winners

Congratulations to Brian Beck and Sabrina Aqil, our two winners in The Linux Foundation’s 2012 “Inspired by Linux” T-shirt Design Contest! Their awesome t-shirt designs took first and second place, respectively, in the community vote.

The shirts will now be printed and sold in the Linux.com store. A limited number will also be available for sale at LinuxCon North America in San Diego Aug. 29-31. Proceeds from the sale will help support Linux and The Linux Foundation. We’ll wear them proudly!

Thanks to everyone who participated, and especially to our finalists for their creativity and support of Linux.

As first place winner Brian will be reimbursed $2,000 to be applied toward airfare, hotel and admissions to his choice of LinuxCon North America or LinuxCon Europe in Barcelona, Spain Nov. 5-7, 2012. In second place, Sabrina will be reimbursed $1,000 toward attending one of the two events.

Brian is the Instructional Technology Specialist for the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Research at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. He also co-founded and teaches for TexOS – the Texas Open Source Project, which installs Linux on donated computers and teaches others how to use it.

“I’m very excited to use, support, promote and market Linux and the Open Source mindset to others,” he said in an email response to winning the contest. “This helps me reach a larger audience!” 

“Thank you and Linux Foundation immensely, for creating and organizing the T-shirt Linux Competition,” said Sabrina, who lives in Cascina, Italy. “I had so much fun designing  “Freedom Lifts Us Up” and I hope it will help promote Linux because Linux deserves to be known better and run worldwide.” 

Lastly, we’d like include an informal, honorable mention for Carmen Andoh. Her Tux Mosaic design was popular among community members but was based on an existing image that required copyright permissions. Per our official contest rules, we had to remove that design from the votes. We hope Carmen will submit again next year!

First Place:  Brian Beck, “Inspired by Linux Arrow”

Brian Beck: From afar, the viewer sees an arrow pointing up at the person wearing the shirt, showing “ ‘This person’ is Inspired by Linux” …. upon closer inspection of the shirt, it shows….”Because Why!”

Second Place: Sabrina Aqil, “Freedom Lifts us Up”

Sabrina Aqil: The design highlights the benefits coming off the freedom that Linux brings to us, opposite to the obstacles put by closed software and patents that slow down our progress towards a better society.

It’s getting harder to list all the companies, projects and institutions that run Linux for its freedom, transparency and cost-effective maintenance. For this reason the design features the Linux mascot, Tux, giving power with his own strength to a series of gears (representing the Linux machines out there) that move the most unexpected technologies of our time: Shuttles (NASA), Submarines (US Navy), Cars (Toyota), Airplanes and Cinema (Disney & Pixar).