Our recently completed Firefox 3 T-shirt Design Contest was one of the most fun projects I’ve worked on since joining Mozilla…it was tremendously gratifying to turn our brand marks over to the community and see so much creativity and enthusiasm in return. Out of the many truly excellent submissions we received, though, the work of Tracie Andrews (aka “egirluk”) really stood out, so it was no surprise when one of her designs was voted the overwhelming contest winner.

I recently emailed Tracie a few questions to find out more about her background, inspirations and approach to the contest. Here’s what she had to say:

1. How did you originally get interested in design?
I’ve always loved art and computers, and always wanted to combine the two. I did a Fine Art degree in 1998 but didn’t get my first computer until 2000. It was then that I discovered a magazine dedicated to digital arts, and that was it. I still dabble with paint and canvas from time to time, but I much prefer what I do now. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

2. How long have you ben designing professionally? What kinds of work do you specialize in?
It’s only been recently in the last few months that I have started designing professionally, and I specialise mainly in illustration and graphic design.

3. How would you describe your style? What are your influences?
To be honest, I don’t have a style - I prefer not to be constrained by that limitation. I’m continually learning and evolving as a designer and I think that is reflected in my work. To me the subject matter/brief dictates the style, not the other way around. As for influences, I’m influenced by everything! TV, cartoons, books, news, fabrics, ads, packaging – everything, I’m always looking at things and seeing the creative aspect!

4. What’s your creative process like? When you found out about the t-shirt contest, how did you approach the work?
When faced with a brief, I like to research everything about the project. Once I have all the information, then I can proceed with sketches and then start work on the computer. I always leave colour choices until last. When I found out about the contest, I searched for everything I could about Firefox and Mozilla, its history, and manifesto. Once I had that information, the designs sort of came together themselves!

5. You were one of the most prolific designers in the entire contest. Of all the designs you submitted, which was your personal favorite and why?
Thank you! My personal favourite was laptop-design. With each design I tried to push them as far as they could go, without losing the ‘message’ (I wasn’t always successful!). This particular design is my favourite because it incorporates all the things I love about Firefox, particularly how Firefox can be customized to each user, so my browser is as unique as I am!

6. Lastly, what’s your favorite thing about Firefox?
Lots of things! I love the customisation aspect, the add-ons and extensions, so I can tailor my browser to my needs. I love the tabs, which makes everything so easier, no more having lots of windows open. And, the fact that the software is relatively small, never crashes and is unobtrusive - oh, and if my operating system does crash, the ‘restore session’ is invaluable.

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Tracie’s winning shirt will be available in the Mozilla Store in the next few weeks. Thanks again to everyone who participated in the contest, and stay tuned for more info on how we’d like to “open source” the rest of the design submissions to make them more widely available.

Adding more open source flavor to our design process is one of my top goals, so I’m excited to announce that we launched the Firefox 3 T-Shirt Contest today.

Our challenge to the Mozilla community (and beyond) is to create the coolest, most interesting Firefox 3-inspired t-shirt design (if you need inspiration, here’s some info on suggested themes). The winner will be determined by a public vote and will have his/her work sold in the Mozilla Store as our official Firefox 3 t-shirt (note: all Store proceeds benefit the Mozilla Foundation).

With Operation Firefox last fall, there were some complaints that it wasn’t international enough (due to some legal restrictions around liability issues), so we took that feedback and made sure the t-shirt contest would be more globally accessible. We’re excited to see the range of styles we get as a result.

There are plenty of other details to cover, but rather than list them all here I’ll just direct you to the official contest page set up on Spread Firefox by Tara Shahian. It should answer most questions, but definitely let us know if there’s anything we missed. The key thing to know for now is that design submissions are due on March 16th, so get those creative juices flowing and send us your best stuff!

Last month I announced an impromptu contest to see who could come up with the best interpretation of the Firefox 3 Beta 2 ‘robot’ artwork. I have to say, I was both surprised by and impressed with the volume and creativity of your comments. There were certainly a lot of great ones.

It took me a little longer than planned to determine the winners, but I’m pleased to report that after much careful deliberation, I have the results. Before I go any further, though, let me make it clear that these are not the “right” answers. There is no single “right” answer…it’s all just a matter of highly subjective interpretation, and these were the three that struck me the most (and won the t-shirts).

The “Extremely Thorough Analysis” award goes to Lim Chee Aun:
“The robot doesn’t seem like a bad guy. It’s actually a good guy! It’s beaming up the Firefox logo in the sky, just like in the Batman movies! It’ll fight off all the bad guys with its powerful boxing gloves and could run super fast like Flash (notice the Flash superhero symbol on the ears?). It’s built to be tough against any attacks, bugs and even evil UFO’s that shoot down buildings. ‘The world needs Firefox 3!’ The robot’s antenna (on the head) shall spread the news through all forms of telecommunication. Though it’s getting dark (notice the dark background and the sun sets), the robot shall not rest and will always fight till the end! Firefox rules!”

The “Should Have Been the Sequel to ‘the Matrix’” award goes to Lachlan:
“This is of course a picture taken at the mighty Firefox take over in 2011, Giant Robots will be built from rival software developers to destroy the Mozilla headquarters, but of course, the robots discover the power of their programs and preach holograms of Firefox and Thunderbird logos! Reminding the world to switch.”

The “Abstract Art Interpretation” award goes to Veekay:
“Well, here goes my thoughts… The robot is FF3 ! And the buildings are actually IE - look at the three buildings that look prominently - thats the ‘E’ lying down and the ‘I’ had already fled the place fearing the UFO’s that are the bugs that hit you hard due to non-standard HTML done by ‘IE’ gurus”

Thanks to everybody who participated…this was a lot of fun. And will we see the robot again in the future? Stay tuned!

Goal: Create a first run page for the latest Firefox 3 beta that would be eye-catching enough to make people stop and explore ways they can provide feedback.

Solution: A giant robot, of course.

Your Challenge: Answer the unanswered questions…who is behind this rampaging robot? Are the UFO’s in the background working with or against it? What’s the significance of it all? Post your theories in the comments section - the best one gets a Firefox t-shirt.

Thanks to Nobox for getting in touch with their inner sci-fi geeks and creating the very cool art for this page.

**Update**
The informal contest is now over (details here)…thanks to everyone who submitted their theories. I’ve been really blown away by all your ideas!

As Andrew and Seth have already noted, Operation Firefox launched last month with a call for people to submit their plans to publicly display a Firefox Fathead sticker in the most interesting and eye-catching possible (legal) fashion.

We knew the success of this program would depend on whether or not people would rise to the challenge of coming up with great ideas and so far things are looking good: the initial phase of the contest ended last Friday, and we received a grand total of 3200 submissions. Very cool!

From a creative perspective, our goal was to create a website that would fire up people’s imaginations and inspire them to participate. This was a particularly fun project to brainstorm about, as we kicked around inspirational ideas ranging from James Bond to the A-Team. For the design, we turned to our friends at Nobox, and they made the astute call that site should resemble the secret hideout of an underground resistance movement rather than the slick style of a 007 HQ…hence the basement shadows and hand-sketched mission plans. It was also very important that every last bit of site text support this concept, so we worked with Elise Allen, who managed to incorporate influences from Fight Club to Flash Mobs into her copy.

The finalists have until December 3rd to execute their plans, and the winners will be announced shortly afterwards. All 50 Fatheads have been shipped to the finalists, so keep an eye out for giant Firefox logos popping up in strange locations over the next few weeks!