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Winners of the GIF IT UP Competition

The Digital Public Library of America and DigitalNZ held the GIF IT UP competition over the course of Autumn 2014: a contest to find the best animated GIFs reusing public domain and openly licensed digital video, images, text, and other material available via the DPLA and DigitalNZ search portals.

The judges were the Smithsonian Magazine and your very own Public Domain Review. Here are the winners we picked...

ANIMALS

Lillie Le Dorre, from Wellington, New Zealand, wins this category with her precocious typing dog. Source material courtesy Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga.

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PLANES, TRAINS, AND OTHER TRANSPORT

Darren Cole, from the United States, wins this category with his moving (and smoking!) monowheel patent. Source material courtesy the National Archives and Records Administration.

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NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Richard Naples, from Washington, DC is awarded the winner for his elegantly fluttering butterflies. Source material courtesy Smithsonian Libraries via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

An animated GIF of butterflies and a caterpillar Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.

YOUR HOMETOWN, STATE OR PROVINCE

Jason Varone’s mesmerizing map overlay of Brooklyn wins this category. Source material courtesy the US Government Printing Office.

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GIF USING A STEREOSCOPIC IMAGE

Ron Leunissen in the Netherlands takes this award away with this stereoscopic image of the Penna. Cavalry at Newport News, en route to Porto Rico. Source material courtesy Boston Public Library.

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WORLD WAR I

The Othmer Library in Philadelphia wins this award with their wagging WWI enlistment dog. Source material courtesy the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources via the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center.

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OPEN

Nono Burling takes away the award for the open category with this romantically dancing couple, created from the photographs of Eadweard Muybridge. Source material courtesy University Southern California Libraries.

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PEOPLE’S CHOICE

Jessica Pyburn’s beautiful snowflake animation is the winner of the People’s Choice Award for the GIF with the most Tumblr ‘notes’, 381 in total. Source material courtesy Smithsonian Institution.

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GIF IT UP: FULL GALLERY

To browse all of the GIF IT UP entries, visit the competition gallery

Published

Dec 19, 2014