Blue Beanie Day 2015

Today is the Ninth Annual Blue Beanie Day—the annual celebration of web standards and the accessible, open web they make possible. It's a thrilling time to create web content and experiences, as more new coders join our ranks, using more new tools and frameworks to create more new kinds of content, experience, and interactivity.

It's too easy for our community—and the breathless media that reports on it—to lose sight of vital basics. Progressive enhancement and accessible, semantic markup aren't optional extras. They're the foundation of a web that works for all people, of whatever ability, on whatever devices they choose to access it.

If you want to show your support for web standards and diversity in our community by adding a blue beanie to your social media avatar, but you don't have a blue beanie to call your own, please download a zipped Photoshop file here (45KB PSD), hand crafted by the magnificent Kevin Cornell. Open it in your image editor and paste onto all your favorite social media avatars—from Twitter to Instagram, Facebook to Google+, Flickr to Foursquare, and beyond. And get a head start on next year with Ruth John's Blue Beanie crochet pattern!

Thank you for supporting web standards and diversity in our community! #bbd15