intothefuzz

Some seasonal cleverness sent to us by a Firefox fan in Canada:

A quick look (in no particular order) at what I’m working on or involved with these days…I should be clear that a lot of these aren’t “my” projects, and are instead things that I’m just helping out with in one way or another.

* brainstorming about how to engage and grow our design community…this is going to be one of my top priorities for 2009, so I’ll blog about it in much more detail soon
* finalizing the Mozilla Community Store – coming next month!
* optimizing the search and download experience for our many non-English locales (includes creating some new landing pages and overhauling the all languages page)
* developing a visual representation of the Mozilla community (more on this soon)
* creating a new SUMO logo
* creating the Impact Mozilla contest site (and helping judge the submissions)
* redesigning Mitchell’s “Lizard Wrangler” blog
* updating the Firefox logos and wordmarks for the 3.1 release
* redesigning the Spread Firefox homepage
* optimizing the Mozilla.com dino head favicon
* creating a new page on Mozilla.com to host all our Firefox 3 videos
* doing some bits of writing and editing for an upcoming add-ons program
* creating new banner ads and landing page to highlight the positive reviews Firefox 3 has received
* helping Alex Faaborg source the designers for 3.1 icon development
* creating some pages and affiliate buttons for our upcoming SF Green Festival sponsorship
* updating our Careers page with some new functionality
* creating new robot artwork for the 3.1 beta first run pages
* optimizing Mozilla.com to drive more traffic to SUMO
* helping with some multivariate testing on Mozilla.com
* ongoing Mozilla Store maintenance
* creating the new Firefox 3 robot art for Camp Europe

I think that’s a pretty complete list…there’s certainly a lot going on these days! If you have any questions or comments, just post ‘em below.

(image courtesy of Ironic Sans)

Last spotted roaming the mountains of Whistler, everyone’s favorite robot has reappeared in Barcelona, just in time for Mozilla Camp Europe.

He was invited there by Patrick Finch and William Quiviger, and once again Nobox did a great job with the illustration. The goal this time was to give the artwork a local flair by incorporating La Sagrada Familia and the colors of FC Barcelona.

Where he’ll turn up next is anyone’s guess, but here’s his latest incarnation:

We were having a debate about URLs on t-shirts today here at the office, and since the results were inconclusive I thought I would turn to you, friendly blog readers, for your expert advice.

The Issue:
When creating t-shirts our standard practice is to put the art on the front and then a smallish Firefox logo + URL on the back. The question is, what URL should we use? Historically, we’ve always used GetFirefox.com, but it’s always worth re-evaluating these things every now and then to make sure we’re not acting only out of habit.

The Case for GetFirefox.com
* action-oriented…gives the reader a clear directive of what we want them to do
* from a brand perspective, seems to have more personality and character than just Firefox.com
* historical precedent…this has been our primary marketing URL for years, so we have some equity built up in it

The Case for Firefox.com
* more direct and to the point…nothing extraneous distracting from the core Firefox message
* might be easier for people to remember if they see it on a shirt and are trying to recall it hours later when they’re at their computer
* this URL actually performed better when we did some SEM tests earlier this year (search results and t-shirts aren’t exactly apples to apples, but it’s interesting nonetheless)

I have my own preference, but I’ll keep it to myself for now to avoid any possible bias. And just to be clear, this isn’t an official survey or anything, but I am quite interested to hear what people think…if you have an opinion, please post a comment.

Thanks!

(image courtesy of Tara)

When we last saw the Firefox 3 robot, he was triumphantly proclaiming victory in honor of the record-setting release last June.

Since then, of course, the Mozilla development community has been hard at work modifying and improving Firefox 3 to get it ready for the upcoming 3.1 launch. So, in that same spirit we sent the robot back to the shop for some upgrades, too.

The idea behind the upgrades was to give the robot a look that would be appropriate for the Shiretoko release, so we enlisted the help of talented mecha illustrator and colorist Josh Burcham. As you can see from this screenshot of the Firefox 3.1 beta 1 first run page, the robot is still lurking in the shadows, but don’t worry…more will be revealed soon.

Yesterday we launched a new marketing challenge called Impact Mozilla…the idea being to open our process to the community and see who can come up with the best idea for increasing the Firefox user retention rate. Our crowdsourcing efforts in the past have always produced good results, so I’m really interested to see what people come up with this time.

When it came time to create the Impact Mozilla site, we worked with the same team who helped us with Operation Firefox – the Nobox design agency and copywriter Elise Allen. Like with Operation Firefox, the site is set up like a little world within your computer, but the trick this time was to balance that sense of whimsy with the more serious nature of this contest.

In the end, we went with a whiteboard theme that’s meant to conjure images of conference rooms and brainstorming sessions and took some direct inspiration from the casual feel of Mozilla’s HQ in Mountain View:

And the final site:

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the design portion of this project: Ken Kovash, Seth Bindernagel, Tara Shahian (who took the photos above), Laura Mesa and Blake Cutler (plus Nobox, Elise and Steven Garrity, of course). And if you have any ideas about how to impact Mozilla, send ‘em in!