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The Creative Collective’s latest design challenge – “Create the Official Mozilla 2010 T-Shirt” – has been running for a few weeks now, but there’s still plenty of time to add your contribution to the mix if you haven’t done so already. But where to begin? How is even possible to sum up Mozilla in a single t-shirt?

Here are a few tips:

1. You don’t have to use the dino head. Although the Mozilla dino is undoubtedly awesome, the creative possibilities will really open up if you look beyond the logo and explore the main themes of the challenge. There are plenty of Mozilla-related concepts, of course, but for starters the creative brief calls out openness, innovation and community. That’s certainly fertile ground for interesting ideas…the more abstract, the better.

As a relevant example, when we did the Firefox 3 t-shirt contest a couple of years ago, we got a ton of interesting designs that used the Firefox logo, but the winner was the one that went a step beyond and found a clever way to convey a broader theme (in that case, community).

2. If you must use the dino head, do it in an interesting way. In other words, think about how you can integrate it into a design that conveys the key themes mentioned above rather than just sticking the logo in the middle of the shirt and then designing around it. For example, Rogelio Calamaya, the winner of our Five Years of Firefox challenge, has submitted a design that uses the dino head, but only as one part of a larger scene. Cool stuff.

Also, it’s worth noting that our trademark policy prevents us from accepting a design that modifies the dino in any way (such as changing the color, distorting the various elements, etc). If that seems too limiting, definitely refer to point #1!

3. Avoid text! The Mozilla community is very global and includes speakers of pretty much every language, so creating a shirt with a lot of English (or any other language) isn’t a great way of celebrating that. Plus, t-shirts are a visual medium so think in terms of pictures to look at rather than words to read.

4. Remember that this challenge is about Mozilla, not Firefox (or any other specific product). We’ve already done a couple of Firefox-related challenges, and surely will do more in the future, but this one is all about Mozilla. So, make sure your design focuses on those Mozilla qualities of openness, innovation and community rather than any particular product or product logo.

5. Abstract is better than literal. Just to hammer home the first point a bit more, the name of the game is creativity, so ponder the themes, search around for inspiration and see where your muse takes you. Push yourself a bit…awesomeness awaits!

The design challenge ends on April 30, so put on your thinking caps. Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

This post has been localized into Belorussian, thanks to PC

Being a fan of email, Ben Chestnut of mailchimp.com had always wondered why there weren’t all that many Thunderbird shirts in the Mozilla Community Store. So, he asked the MailChimp design lead Ron Lewis to cook something up.

In response, Ron came up with an airbrush-style creation worthy of the grooviest 70s van. I’ll go out on a limb and say that an email client has never before looked this cool:

This image, titled “Morning Dew“, and its darker counterpart, “Sunset Steam“, are now both available at the Community Store. Either one makes the perfect fashion choice for any open source gathering, developer conference or simply the next time you hang out with this guy.

Our Five Years of Firefox design challenge over at the Creative Collective has ended, and I’m very pleased to report that the winner is “Happy B-Day Firefox“, by Rogelio Calamaya, Jr (aka Lucero). There were a lot of great submissions, but his stood out as one of my favorites…very creative and well-done.

Mary Colvig has a post with more information that also showcases some of the other amazing community activity that took place around Firefox’s 5th birthday, so be sure check that out.

Congrats to Rogelio for his awesome work, and BIG thanks to everyone who took the time to create and submit a design. Stay tuned for info on the next one coming soon!

When we launched the Mozilla Creative Collective last August, our goal was to give artistically-inclined members of the Mozilla community a place to share their work. Since then, our artists have uploaded nearly 800 pieces, including some very unique and unexpected stuff…as always, seeing the community in action is a very awesome and inspiring thing.

One of my favorite Creative Collective artists is Hamu, who lives in Beijing and has posted 29 Firefox-inspired illustrations so far. His work is an interesting blend of and modern cartoons and traditional Chinese styles, so I decided to get in touch and find out more about his inspirations and process. He gave some great answers, so be sure to read the interview below and then check out his full gallery at the MCC.

Thanks Hamu!

When you start working on a new piece, what’s your artistic process like? Specifically, what about Firefox inspires you?

Well, as same as other artists, before painting I need some inspiration. Inspiration in my perspective means some human feeling from one’s daily life. When the inspiration is clear and definite in my mind, I will do some imagination to decide the overall composition and construction, then I will start painting.

Firefox comes from a worldwide community. I started my Internet browsing in 1997 and witnessed “The 1st Internet Browser War” between Internet Explore and Netscape. After that, this virtual world lost the balance – IE grew bigger and bigger, but it became worse and worse.

The rise of Firefox was like new blood giving this virtual world a rebirth. It has stimulated people’s creativity. The success of Firefox is a story happening in front of eyes. In the story, Firefox experienced failure, reflection, rebirth and eventually won. It encouraged me to keep creating something new.

One of my favorite pieces you’ve done is “Traditional Chinese Style” (annotated version shown above). What was the process like as you were creating that one? What do the various symbols and characters mean?

At the very beginning of my Mozilla Creative Collective life, I tried to do something different than others. I didn’t focus on the group of keywords like “5″, “birthday” and “anniversary” – instead, I tried to express the feeling from my daily life with Firefox during this five years. With “Traditional Chinese Style” I wanted to express that with Firefox we could freely do anything on the Internet, that there were no longer any restrictions on browsing.

I have heard that, 201 years ago, an American man named Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky – afterwards he proposed “The Emancipation Proclamation”, which gave hope to those black slaves and eventually he won the American Civil War. I have also heard that, 92 years ago, a Japanese man named Matsushita Konosuke used only 100 Japanese yuan and built the world famous corporation Panasonic. 16 years ago, a black African whose name is Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ended the apartheid in South Africa and won in a fully representative democratic election. With a dream, a mortal will become a hero.

When I saw the notice of Firefox’s 5th anniversary, a Chinese proverb flashed in my mind: “海阔凭鱼跃，天空任鸟飞”. The direct translation is “the sea is wide enough that fish could swim to everywhere, the sky is wide enough that bird could fly to everywhere.” It comes from a Buddhist named 元览 (Yuan Lan) who lived in the 唐 (Tang) dynasty in China. He wrote “大海从鱼跃，长空任鸟飞” on a piece of bamboo to express his feeling. I translate this poetry as “With a dream, you could sail to everywhere you want; with a dream, you could fly to everywhere you like.” It’s a metaphor that one can be fully free to act, or freely demonstrate one’s abilities without constraints.

(editor’s note: here’s a larger version of the annotated image shown above)
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As Sarah Doherty noted in a blog post earlier today, the submission period of our Five Years of Firefox design challenge has ended, and now it’s time to cast your votes.

Just sign into your account at the Creative Collective, browse the challenge gallery for designs you like and click the I Vote for This button when you’re so inspired. You can vote for as many designs as you want (in fact, that’s encouraged).

The only tricky part is that there are a lot of submissions to browse through, and we have some really good ones this time around. You’re certainly encouraged to follow your own design eye, but if you’re looking for a shortcut from someone who’s seen them all, here’s my personal top 10 (in order of submission):

* Happy B-day Firefox, by lucero
* Firefox is 5, by milgaviel
* Speed Up, by hamu
* Firefox Fiesta, by minervagm
* Exploring the World, by dgwhite
* Five Years, by vinayak
* A Minimalistic Congratulation, by flyboy
* Simple and Effective, by creativedave63
* Celebrate With Us the FFF!, by xeryc
* Happy Birthday Firefox!, by followmedesign

Here’s a Flickr slideshow of the designs listed above:

Update: our next design challenge isn’t happening until January, so we’re extending the voting period on this one until December 31. Spread the word!

*Crossposted from the Mozilla Blog*

The results from the Mozilla Creative Collective’s “Firefox Goes Mobile” design challenge are in, and I’m happy to announce that the winner is “Pocketfox”, by Yaroslaff Chekunov. As the official emblem of the upcoming mobile version of Firefox, we’ll be using this image as an avatar on social networking sites, on mozilla.com, on t-shirts and more. It makes a great addition to our portfolio of Firefox imagery!

Yaroslaff, who is based in Krasnodar, Russia, cites as his design inspiration, “the Firefox itself, your approach to the web-site execution, and of course my wife who always brings up new ideas.” Be sure to check out his other Mozilla work as well as his general portfolio.

The four runners-up in the challenge were Mauro Henrique de Bulhões Fidelix’s “Hot Navigation”, Emmanuel John Y. Villar’s “One Mask One Family One World”, Joyce Schellekens’ “Firefox All Around the World” and Eric Yeoung’s “MobiFox”. Interestingly, these designers all hail from different countries (Brazil, the Philippines, the Netherlands and Indonesia), which speaks to the incredible diversity of our community. Many thanks to them, and to everyone else who participated, for sharing their time and talents with Mozilla.

We’ve also launched a new challenge at the Creative Collective: “Five Years of Firefox”. Help us celebrate Firefox’s 5th birthday by creating designs based on this milestone. The possibilities are practically endless, but should generally focus on recognizing what a great accomplishment this is for the Mozilla community and what it’s meant for the hundreds of millions of people who use Firefox. The winner will be featured on this blog, turned into desktop wallpaper and t-shirts, and more.

The submission period for “Five Years of Firefox” ends on December 9th, but don’t wait to get started. Visit the design challenge page for more details, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with!

The submission period in our “Firefox Goes Mobile” Design Challenge ended last week, and now it’s time to pick a winner. Your votes will help decide what image ends up being used on websites, t-shirts and more so be sure to scan through the full gallery between now and October 23rd and choose wisely!

(For what it’s worth I voted for the design below. Titled “Pocketfox“, it was done by Creative Collective member yaroslaff_che)

Quick Update on the Firefox Goes Mobile design challenge: we’ve extended the deadlines by a couple of weeks… submissions are now due on Friday, October 16 and voting wraps up on Friday, October 23.

As I noted in my earlier post, this is a great way to get involved with one of the biggest things going on in the world of Mozilla right now. We need an ‘official emblem’ to represent mobile in a variety of places (websites, t-shirts, etc), and are looking to our community to help us out. If you’re interested, head over to the Creative Collective and upload your design.

Lastly, a few tips:
* abstract is better…we want to convey the general themes that mobile represents, like convenience, connectivity, innovation and accessibility.
* we strongly recommend not making phone imagery a major part of your design…showing an actual phone isn’t necessary to convey the key themes.
* focus on telling the story with imagery (for example, note how the Firefox 3 t-shirt design embodies community in a creative way).

Email me any time (jslater at mozilla dot com) if you have questions. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

*This is crossposted from the Mozilla Blog. I’d also like to give a huge thanks to Mike Morgan, Ryan Snyder and Craig Cook from WebDev; Krupa, Stephen, Raymond, Vishal, Milos and TMZ from QA; and Tara Shahian and Jeff Zeller from Marketing. They all did amazing work in putting this together really smoothly and efficiently.*

We just launched a big new feature on the Mozilla Creative Collective: design challenges. The idea is to give our creative community the opportunity to make meaningful contributions to Mozilla by focusing everyone’s efforts on a particular topic. We’ll be hosting these design challenges roughly once a month, and we’re kicking things off with Firefox Goes Mobile.

The goal of the Firefox Goes Mobile challenge is to create the official promotional emblem of the mobile version of Firefox (which is getting closer and closer to release). The winning image will be used on everything from websites like mozilla.com and addons.mozilla.org to schwag like t-shirts and stickers, so if you’re a designer it’s a great way to get involved and make a big impact on a really important project.

To sum up, we’re asking you to abstractly represent mobile-themed concepts like convenience, connectivity and innovation in a simple, yet easily understandable graphic…basically telling the mobile story with a single image. Not an easy task, but of course that’s why it’s called a challenge! There are more details about what we’re looking for on the Firefox Goes Mobile page, so if you’re thinking about getting involved definitely read through those first.

The submission period lasts until September 30th (with voting extended through October 7th)…we can’t wait to see what the Mozilla community comes up with!

With the browser world now more competitive than ever, it’s essential that we tell the story of what Mozilla is and why Firefox matters as effectively as possible. There are a lot of ways to do this, of course, but it’s hard to find a better communications tool than good visual design…which is why I’m so excited about today’s beta launch of the Mozilla Creative Collective site.

The Creative Collective is the hub of our growing design community, and a place for people around the world to use their talents to help the Mozilla mission and make connections with their fellow artists. The site – which was designed by the talented folks at Airbag Industries (now part of Happy Cog) and built by our phenomenal WebDev team (including freelancers Ryan Snyder and Craig Cook) – has a variety of features to facilitate sharing, social networking and generally getting involved, with more stuff on the way. Definitely check it out – there are already some hidden gems in the gallery.

As Tara noted in the official announcement, Mozilla actually has a long history of open source design projects, but we’d never had much in the way of an organized community until now. I love the idea of expanding the scope of the overall Mozilla community to include visual designers, and can already think of so many ways they’ll be able to contribute (more on that later).

Like any community project, the key to the Creative Collective’s success will be getting people to participate. Here’s how you can help:
* Contribute a design that inspires people to take action for Mozilla Service Week as part of our first mini-challenge (details at the Mozilla Blog). We have t-shirts waiting for our favorites!
* Upload Firefox or Mozilla-themed artwork you’ve created in the past, or do something brand new and share it with the world.
* Even if you’re not a designer you can join the Creative Collective and get things going by following your favorite artists or “liking” designs you enjoy.
* Help us spread the word by telling your designy friends, tweeting, posting on Facebook, etc. Every design detail page includes a widget to make sharing via your social networking sites super easy.

Huge thanks goes out to the following people for everything they did to make the Mozilla Creative Collective launch possible: Tara Shahian, Jeff Zeller, Mike Morgan, Ryan Snyder, Craig Cook, Ryan Doherty, Greg Storey, Ethan Marcotte, Stephen Caver, Helenita Johnson, Stephanie Schonauer, Studio Number One, Stephen Donner, Krupa Raj, Raymond Etornam, Shyam Mani, Catherine Brady and Paul Kim.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that this is still a beta site, and we’re counting on the community to help set the agenda for what comes next and generally make it better. So, if you find any bugs or have ideas for features and functionality that you’d like to see, please let us know. See you on the Creative Collective!