This site started as FreeSVGClipart.com and it was created to fill a need that Openclipart left when it suddenly closed their doors and put up a beg page. Not only did we recover the majority of the Openclipart library we also provided an easy to use API to developers and to the clipart community we offered a downloadable backup of our entire collection and the data that went along with it. It became apparent to us very quickly that the traditional hosting model for clipart is in many ways unsustainable, there needs to be a way to host files and keep the data with them. Adding meta data to the SVG files themselves would be one way of doing that, but when you are looking at hundreds of thousands of SVG files adding that meta data in could be difficult, not to mention there is still the problem of hosting. If only there was a way to host the clipart files and the data together that made it easy for anyone anywhere to be able to access the data and files without the need to constantly worry about hosting.
Back in January 2021 I was browsing the Internet and somehow fell down a rabbit hole looking at different blockchain projects like Storj, Filecoin and Sia and while each project was interesting they all pretty much followed the same model as companies like Dropbox, AWS or Backblaze. Then somehow I clicked to visit Arweave and immediately knew Arweave was different.
Since then I would often go back to the site and read more about how Arweave works, visit the sub Reddit and follow the conversations. This idea of the permaweb just stuck in my brain. I was really busy through most of January and February and did not have much time to spend actually trying Arweave but in early March I had some time and created a wallet on the site and they sent me a small amount of tokens to try out. I decided a quick test using a service called ArDrive would help me know if Arweave was usable and decided to upload the first SVG file from the site using them. You can see the first upload transaction I did here. I learned a lot from the first upload and realized after reading more about the Arweave-PHP SDK and the Arweave JS SDK that it would be possible to move the SVG clipart collection from the traditional server model that we currently have to a new blockchain model where the files and data are together in one upload and are hosted permanently on the Arweave blockweave forever. That means that even if this website ceases to exist the clipart and data that we use will continue to live on and be available. That is the day PermaClipart was born.
There will be more information coming in the coming days and weeks about Arweave, the Permaweb, PermaClipart and all of the changes in store. For now we just wanted to switch the domain name and get the process started of moving the site to a new name. If you had an account on FreeSVGClipart you have the same account on PermaClipart.
Welcome to PermaClipart!