HTML5 Military Jacket

My friend has suggested for a while that the HTML5 logo would look good as a military-style patch, and I only recently got around to the project. Originally I was going to do some kind of iron-on transfer, but I figured hand-painting it would make it more personal. I think it came out really well!

Before I started on the large logo, I made a strip of icons representing various tech classes in HTML5, to go across over the jacket's breast pocket. I sketched the shapes freehand and then filled them in using bronze-colored acrylic paint.

The HTML5 logo is graphic and shield-shaped. It works pretty well for a patch. I sketched the logo onto fabric (this time with the help of a ruler, since the straight lines are pretty crucial) and mixed paint to match the orange shades.

I pinned the fabric to a thin corkboard so that it wouldn't buckle too much under layers of wet paint.

I decided that the four logos needed something to make them pop, so I outlined them in pen (I settled on a waterproof, bleedproof Copic after exhaustive testing).

I folded under the edges and made small hems across the top and bottom, then sewed pieces of velcro to the ends and middle of the strip.

The strip attached to a piece of velcro already on the right side of the jacket, and I sewed a slightly larger backing to the HTML5 logo and pinned the whole thing to the left sleeve. Here's what the jacket looked like on:

I might want to make the logo strip a little smaller, but I don't think paint would still work in that case; paint pens might end up being better. Overall, though, I think it worked surprisingly well.