Blender

For Published

Artists first, plus studios making animation and VFX, game artists, scientists, students and educators; individual artists and small teams get a complete pipeline (paraphrase).

Problem Our reading

Commercial 3D tools lock work behind trial or educational editions that forbid commercial use (paraphrase of the license page's contrast).

Promise Our reading

The freedom to create: the whole 3D pipeline, free forever, and the work belongs to you.

Mission Published

Get the world's best 3D CG technology in the hands of artists as free/open source software.

Proof behind each pillar

• Free and Open Source. Licensed GNU GPL (v2 or later for source; binaries under v3 or later); Cycles is Apache 2.0.
• Free and Open Source. Over 20 million downloads per year (website credits page).
• Part of the industry. Member of the Academy Software Foundation, Khronos Group (Associate), Linux Foundation and Open Invention Network; also ASIFA Hollywood.
• Part of the industry. Development Fund Corporate Patrons announced in press releases include Netflix Animation Studios (Jan 2026), Wacom and Bolt Graphics (2025).
• It's about people. Thousands of contributors; millions use it daily (about page wording, no exact count).
• The Ecosystem. Blender-based businesses that thrive within the trademark policy: Superhive, CGCookie, Creative Shrimp (named by the policy).
• Everything You Need. Cycles, Blender's built-in unbiased path-tracer, with CPU and GPU rendering.

Story Observed

The Blender Foundation (2002) is an independent public-benefit organization in Amsterdam that runs blender.org as a public project. Its main income is the Development Fund plus one-time donations; Blender Institute employs developers and Blender Studio makes open films and training that push the software. Since 2020 it publishes annual reports on activities and finances. In January 2026 Ton Roosendaal handed the chairman and CEO roles to Francesco Siddi.

Values

Category. Free and open source 3D creation software (page title: 'The Free and Open Source 3D Creation Software') Observed

Why them

1. GNU GPL, owned by its contributors; nobody can take the freedom away. Published
2. Community project funded by donations and the Development Fund, not by license sales. Published
3. A complete pipeline in one suite: modeling, sculpting, rendering, VFX, animation and 2D in 3D. Observed
4. Member of the industry's open-source and standards bodies; supported by AMD, Apple, Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm. Observed
5. Privacy: no registration, works offline, no tracking on blender.org. Published

Instead of

Trial or 'educational' versions of commercial software that forbid commercial work.

Boilerplate Observed

Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite: a community project coordinated by the Blender Foundation, primarily funded by donations. Thousands of people have contributed to the software and millions use it daily. It is released under the GNU GPL, so anyone may use it for any purpose, including commercially, and everything made with it belongs to its creator.

Taglines

More real lines

Blender's own pages say the same few things: Free and Open Source software, forever; a community project funded by donations; part of the industry; the freedom to create. The homepage sections are the pillars in order.

Source: blender.org/aboutblender.orgblender.org/about/licenseblender.org/about/foundation

• Product copy names the actual tool, technique or standard (path tracer, N-Gons, B-spline bones, planar tracking, OpenGL viewport, Python API). Never replace a feature with a benefit abstraction ('one file from start to finish', 'ready for anything'). Short noun-phrase list items, no verbs of promise.
• News and Studio excerpts name the real thing (a person, a technique such as NPR or Gaussian splatting, a phase such as fundraising) and may open with a lively verb phrase ('Buckle up', 'Let's take a stroll'). Never generic invitations ('Watch', 'Meet', 'Discover', 'The team shares').
• Title case headlines
• American spelling
• Exclamation marks are part of the voice in moderation: one in a line of enthusiasm, never in rules or legal copy
• Write the name as Blender: never abbreviated, modified or combined with other words or symbols into a new mark
• To say a work was made with Blender, type it out (e.g. 'made with Blender') rather than using the logo
• Describe Blender as Free and Open Source software (capitalised as Blender writes it), licensed GNU GPL
• Never: free trial, educational version, trial version
• Third-party copy must never imply official affiliation, sponsorship or endorsement by the Blender Foundation

FreeCommunity-mindedEnthusiasticPlainspoken

No voice guide is published. On its own pages Blender is warm, direct and community-minded: short Title Case headings, plain explanations of license and funding, the odd exclamation ('Really!'), and generosity toward fans who remix the logo.

• Title Case headings (observed); sentence case with a full stop for a few emphatic homepage lines
• Second person for rules and help ('You are welcome to credit Blender')
• Explain money and licensing plainly
• US spelling on the site
• Exclamations allowed sparingly in enthusiastic lines

• Plainspoken means concrete, not simple: Blender talks to practitioners in the names of real tools and techniques, then adds a little warmth ('Really!'). Vague benefit copy is off-voice.
• Blender publishes no voice or copy guide. Everything here is read from its own pages (observed 2026-10-30), not prescribed.
• Freedom is the through-line: free to use, change, share and sell your work; 'Free and Open Source software, forever.'
• Credit the people: the community, contributors and artists come before the software; hero art carries the artist's name.
• Warm and a little playful: exclamation marks and asides appear in Blender's own copy ('Really!', 'Hi Five!').
• Plain explanations, including of money: who pays, how funds are spent, annual reports.
• The trademark rules govern how others use the name: written out in full, never abbreviated or merged into another name.

Source: blender.org/about/logoblender.org/about/trademark-policyblender.org/aboutblender.org/about/licenseblender.org/about/foundationblender.org

Not published: a voice or tone guide; a copy style guide (case, numbers, dates); banned words.

Source: blender.org/about/logoblender.org/about/trademark-policyblender.org/aboutblender.org/about/licenseblender.org

The Blender logo is the orange-and-blue logomark beside the lowercase 'blender' wordmark, with a registered mark. The logo page shows it full color with a white surround (the file names call it the socket), and three variations without the surround for simple plain grounds: full color, black and white. It must always be complete (logo plus text). A community badge (white, black, orange shield with the mark and wordmark) is the sanctioned way for creators to show Blender was used.

Not published: clear space; minimum size; logomark-alone usage for Blender's own materials; placement rules; wordmark construction or typeface (the lettering is custom; no source names it).

Source: blender.org/about/logoblender.org/about/trademark-policy

Two palettes, scoped. The logo page publishes the brand colors: PMS 716 orange #E87D0D, PMS 647 blue #265787 and white. The website runs on Web Assets' neutral slate system instead: #F2F2F3 ground, #FAFAFA boxes, #4C4D52 text, #292D32 dark bands and footer, and an interactive blue #0099FF with a #6183FF-#47AAF5 gradient on the Donate button. The logo colors never appear in the UI. Homepage message boxes add one saturated heading color each (teal, blue, purple) on a matching tint.

Not published: color proportions; CMYK or RGB breakdowns of the logo colors; a rule tying the logo colors to the web palette; the homepage box colors (set per block in WordPress, not in Web Assets).

Source: blender.org/about/logoprojects.blender.org/infrastructure/web-assets%20(src/styles/_variables.sass)blender.org/wp-content/themes/bthree/style.css%20(2026-10-30)blender.org/%20(2026-10-30)

One family: Inter, the open variable face, shipped in Web Assets and used for everything. Headings are 600; hero titles and homepage 'massive titles' are 800. Sizes step up at two breakpoints (900px and 1220px). Tracking is normal. Mono is a system stack.

Not published: a typographic guide (pairing, hierarchy rules for print); the wordmark's lettering.

Source: projects.blender.org/infrastructure/web-assets%20(src/styles/_variables.sass,%20_type.sass,%20_fonts.sass)

Graphic language comes from Web Assets components: rounded boxes (12px) with soft shadows, 6px buttons, 2px borders and focus rings, hero art with a text-shadowed title, and the blue gradient accent button with a glow.

Source: projects.blender.org/infrastructure/web-assets%20(src/styles/_variables.sass,%20_button.sass,%20_type.sass)blender.org/wp-content/themes/bthree/style.css%20(2026-10-30)

Icons come from 'fontutti', an icon font built with Fontello and shipped in Web Assets: mostly custom glyphs plus a few from Font Awesome, Typicons and Entypo. They inherit the text color. Social icons in the footer are single-color glyphs.

Not published: an icon drawing guide (grid, stroke, corners).

Source: web-assets fontutti_config.jsonweb-assets src/styles/_mixins.sass

Blender has no illustration system. Its 'illustration' is 3D artwork made in Blender: Blender Studio film characters, splash screens and community renders, sometimes used as characters in campaigns (the survey cat).

Not published: an illustration style.

Source: blender.org/%20(2026-10-30)blender.org/about/website

Imagery is Blender-made art, not photography: each page hero is a render or film still (Blender Studio, Ian Hubert, Reynante Martinez, Robin Tran) with a credit. Photography appears only as event and community pictures (conference, people cards) and in news cards, cropped with 12px corners.

Not published: a photography guide.

Source: blender.org/%20(2026-10-30)blender.org/about/%20(2026-10-30)blender.org/about/website

Motion is UI-level only: 150ms transitions on color, background and border, an 80ms ease-out press that scales buttons to 0.95, and a 250ms slow speed.

Not published: brand motion or video guidelines.

Source: projects.blender.org/infrastructure/web-assets%20(src/styles/_variables.sass,%20_mixins.sass)