No License Required

Some people may be under the mistaken impression that they need some sort of official license or pay a fee to use the official Hugo Awards logo when referring to the Hugo Awards. That's not true. If you're writing about the Hugos, feel free to download the official registered logo to illustrate your discussion. What you should not do is claim to be a Hugo Award winner (or nominee; what I suspect we're going to have to start calling "finalist" due to people appropriating the use of the older term that's been in place for decades) when you aren't one. Writing an article about things you think should be nominated for a Hugo Award? Using the official logo is a good thing there, as long as you don't claim that your use means you're officially sanctioned by WSFS in some way.

There are stray pictures of Hugo Awards logos out there, left over from the contest to design an official logo. Casual image searches turn up these alternative logos. I wish people would stop using them, even if, as one of my friends said, "I like it better." When you use alternative logos, you do tiny bits of damage to the Hugo Award's intellectual property by eroding a service mark that WSFS has asked us (including me) to help build up. So if you really care about the Award, accept no substitutes!