intothefuzz

The other day I posted some work-in-progress versions of the potential new Mozilla Developer Network logo. As part of that, I asked for feedback from the community and got a *ton* of great input (142 comments at the last count). Thanks to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts.

Although determining the mood of the group in these ‘design in the open’ projects is never as simple as counting up people’s votes and picking a winner, you can usually spot some larger trends as you read through the comments. In this case, all the options had their fans (and detractors, of course), but the two that rose above the rest were #3 and #8.

We were also gravitating towards #8, but there was something about it that didn’t feel quite right…the skull was a bit too rounded, and we realized that it really didn’t look all that different from the original Mozilla dino. So, we asked Studio Number One to take the style of #8 but use more of the overall shape and elements from #3 and present some new lockups for us.

They did that, and after a bit of debate about where the dino’s mouth should be open or closed, we finally settled on this for the new Mozilla Developer Network logo:

The next step is to create the MDN website, and we’ve already enlisted the talented folks at Happy Cog West to help with that. This logo will certainly inform the site design, and in fact we’ll be working with Studio Number One to create a few additional variations to represent the various sub-categories within the site itself (web developers, mobile developers, etc). Jay Patel will be following up with those details soon.

I should also mention that in the process of reviewing Studio Number One’s work, there was another option that didn’t quite feel like it should be the official logo but was still pretty awesome. So, we’re holding onto it for other things (I hate to spoil the surprise, but the odds are very high that you’ll be seeing it on t-shirt before long).

Thanks again to everyone who viewed the post and contributed feedback, and to Studio Number One, Jay Patel, Alix Franquet and Chris Blizzard for all their great work.

We’re in the process of building the Mozilla Developer Network to be a useful resource for developers working on the various Mozilla-based software projects and the open web in general. It’s a big, far-reaching project so, as Jay Patel noted last week, it’s important that we establish a strong brand identity for the MDN.

The first step is to create a logo that will represent the MDN to developers around the world (and also look great on a t-shirt, of course). To do this, we’ve once again turned to the talented folks at Studio Number One, who last worked with us on the logo for the Mozilla Creative Collective. And, as usual, we want this process to be as open and participatory as possible…in other words, we need your help!

The intended audience for this logo and the MDN in general is most definitely developers. As Jay’s creative brief notes, “the MDN brand will serve to unify our diverse developer communities and represent the innovation we bring to the world through the people, products, and technologies that define Mozilla.” Beyond that, the direction was pretty wide open – the key thing being that the MDN logo would feel both connected to Mozilla’s identity and history, but also be distinctly separate as its own unique entity.

Posted below are some early stage design options from Studio Number One (including different variations on similar themes). At this point in the process we need to start focusing on one for further refinement. Which one should that be? What stands out to you and why? Try to envision these on a website, t-shirt, poster, sticker, etc and let us know what you think by Friday, February 19. Any and all feedback is encouraged.

Thanks!

If you’re a graphic designer looking to get involved with Mozilla, here’s an excellent opportunity: the Mozilla Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina needs a new logo and has launched a contest in conjunction with the Creative Collective to help make it happen.

Kerim Kalamujic has posted the details (and relevant source files) on the Mozilla BiH site, so be sure to check that out if you’re interested. And if you’re not local, I’d suggest doing a little research before you start designing to make sure you capture the right flavor.

The chosen logo will be used in a wide variety of places, so this is a great chance to make a huge impact on the look & feel of one of our most active communities. Submissions are due March 15th…looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

As noted yesterday, there are many good things about Mozilla’s various websites, but the big picture of how they’re organized and work together leaves a lot of room for improvement. Entering our web universe can be really confusing for users, and the current setup limits the ways we can spread the word about all the stuff that’s happening around the organization and community.

So, to kickstart the discussion of how we might solve these problems, we held a public brown bag today to talk about the overall situation and how to improve it. Big thanks to everyone who attended and participated – it was really great to hear people’s ideas and input.

During the brown bag, I framed the solution as having four basic steps (none of which are easy, of course):
1. think about our sites as components of a larger network rather than a bunch of individual pieces.
2. tell our story effectively by making sure each site has a clear role and distinct focus.
3. group related content together so it’ll be where users can find it.
4. connect sites more effectively through cross-linking, UI elements, visual palette, etc.

More specifically, the central proposal that I put out there was that we should have a single Mozilla site (mozilla.org) that would focus on sharing the big picture of who we are and what we do, and would be a central hub for a bunch of product- and audience- specific sites to orbit around. As part of that, we would rename mozilla.com to more accurately reflect its current focus as the main Firefox product site.

The next question, then, is what to call that Firefox product site. For a variety of reasons (that will probably require another blog post to detail) my personal vote is to call it firefox.com, although there are certainly other options – mozilla.org/firefox or firefox.mozilla.org, for example. It’s an interesting discussion, although the specifics of the URL are ultimately less important than the overall goal of making our sites better.

Regardless of the name, though, there’s a lot we could do on this “new” site, such as integrating Firefox add-ons and support to create a single destination for all things Firefox. It would be a powerful communications vehicle for us, and a really useful resource for users.

Of course there are a ton of details that still need to be talked through, and some big questions to figure out. For example, where do key sites like Mozilla Europe fit into all this? Would this create an improper balance between the Firefox and Mozilla brands? What’s the right URL structure?

But, I’m confident we can answer those questions, and once we do the result will be a huge improvement for all involved: more relevant, accessible content for users; a clearer platform for communicating the mission; a better vehicle for talking about Firefox and other key initiatives like mobile, add-ons, services, etc. There are lots of really exciting opportunities, and I can’t wait to get started on them.

If you weren’t able to make it to the brown bag today (or even if you were), I’ve attached the full set of slides here, and Laura has put up a bunch of notes from the discussion session. The slides have way more detail than this this post, so please take a look and share any questions or comments in the comments section below. Thanks!

Update: David Boswell offers up some thoughts from the Mozilla Foundation perspective.

The Mozilla web universe is an interesting place. We operate a number of quality websites that, when viewed as a whole, make us one of the most highly-trafficked web companies around (a rough estimate is around 700,000,000 total page views per month – and that doesn’t include the Firefox start page).

But, right now it’s kind of tough to view them as a whole because they’re all treated pretty individually, without a lot of coordination or linkage between them. This confusing site structure causes a couple of problems that we need to solve: 1) it’s hard for users to learn about Mozilla, get involved or otherwise use the sites in the way they’re intended and 2) makes it hard for us to communicate the full breadth of things we have going on.

So, in the spirit of solving those problems I’m be hosting an upcoming brown bag titled “Rethinking the Mozilla Web Universe”. I’ll be elaborating on the current situation in a bit more detail, and have some ideas on how we might approach making things better, but I’d mostly like it to be a discussion about a revised web universe should look like and how we can get there.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, please join us! It’s open to the public…here are the details:
* when: Thursday, February 11 at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time
* phone: dial 1.800.707.2533 (password 369) or 1.650.215.1282 (extension 92#), then dial Conference number 8600#
* video: it’ll be broadcast on Air Mozilla
* IRC: you can post questions or comments in #marketing

(David Boswell has also posted a few quick thoughts on this subject.)

The title of this post pretty much says it all, but I’ll repeat it again: if Firefox was a fictional character (from any medium – movie, book, TV show, song, comic, epic poem, etc), who would it be?

Although this might sound insanely frivolous, I’m actually really interested to hear what you come up with. Call it an informal brand perception survey.

So, think about it and post the first thing that comes to mind in the comments section. As added incentive, I’ll send a fabulous Firefox t-shirt (or equivalent merch item) to the person who submits my favorite answer.

Thanks!

Today’s launch of the first-ever mobile version of Firefox is definitely a big deal. So, like we’ve done with other Mozilla big deals, we created a cool design to help celebrate the occasion.

To make it happen, we turned to our friends at the Royal Order and the Delicious Design League. After some discussion about what type of sci-fi direction the illustration should take (we settled on “philosophical and psychedelic”…think 2001), they came up with the artwork below.

You’re certainly encouraged to share this with anyone you think might enjoy it, and you can also download a larger version if you’d like to print a copy for yourself. Here’s to browsing without borders!

The last time I took a picture of a Mozilla-related cake it turned out to be (by far) the most widely viewed post in the not-that-illustrious history of this blog, so here’s another one:

For the record, Microsoft didn’t send us this one. Nonetheless, big congrats to everyone around the world who made these releases possible…amazing work, as usual!

In general it’s hard to find much fault in Apple’s approach to marketing – it’s worked pretty well for them, after all – but they’re certainly not afraid to turn the hyperbole dial up to 11. If I were them, I might have saved terms like “magical” and “revolutionary” for when they release products like the iLevitate and iCanTurnInvisible in 2013.

Big news from the world of Mozilla: we released Firefox 3.6 today!

(I’ll pause for a moment while you go download it.)

As always, we made a bunch of site content updates in an attempt to convey the full awesomeness of the new browser. Here are a few of the highlights (Laura Mesa also has more details over on her blog):

* Personas: uplifting Personas from an add-on to the product was one of the biggest consumer-facing features in 3.6, so we made sure to cover that news in a variety of spots. Most notably, Tara Shahian and Mary Colvig masterminded a great video to show off what Personas are all about, and we added functionality in a few key spots that lets 3.6 users demo some sample Personas with a simple rollover.

* WOFF: another cool 3.6 feature is support for the new WOFF font standard, and we put that to good use by showing off the WOFF version of Meta on the newly redesigned First Run and What’s New pages.

* Security: keeping users safe is always a major priority, so we revamped the Firefox security page to reflect all the latest goodness (including the plugin check – another new 3.6 feature). As an added bonus, the page also includes a new security-themed illustration…of a walrus teaching a squirrel to surf, of course.

* Customization: building on the new Personas content, we also created a new Customization page to spread the word about Collections and other ways to personalize your Firefox.

* Download Pages: the various versions of the Firefox download page received a variety of content tweaks to support the key features and benefits of 3.6, and to roll out the “world’s best browser” messaging.

These projects (and dozens of others) wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of people’s very hard work. Huge thanks to everyone who contributed to the website portion of the release, including (but not limited to): Tara Shahian, Laura Mesa, Steven Garrity & silverorange, Tim Hogan & the Royal Order, everyone at Addis Creson, the Delicious Design League, Ivo Gabrowitsch & FontShop, William Slater, Melissa Shapiro, Johnathan Nightingale, Nick Nguyen, Mary Colvig, Alex Buchanan, Mike Morgan, Irina Sandu, Kohei Yoshino, Pascal Chevrel & the l10n community, Stephen Donner, Raymond Etornam, Jeremy Orem, Chris Blizzard, Ken Kovash, Rainer Cvillink, Mike Beltzner, Chris Beard, Sean Martell and more.