First, we launched the next phase of our partnership with Infectious: a design challenge based around the theme of technology making people’s lives better. Or, as they put it, “People and Robots: Best Friends Forever“. Past Infectious challenges have produced some great work, so I can’t wait to see what comes as a result of this one.

Stay tuned for more updates on the challenge, and definitely submit your own stuff if you’re feeling inspired (the grand prize is $1000 + other goodies). If the challenge submissions make me half as happy as this promo graphic it’ll definitely be a big success:

(Site note: any resemblance the above graphic and this cereal box is more than coincidental.)

Also, we also took a big step towards launching the Mozilla Creative Collective by unveiling the new creative.mozilla.org site. It mostly just features placeholder content for now, but this is where the MCC will live and it’s a nice hint at what the final site will look like.

Speaking of the Creative Collective, our fearless Web Dev leader Mike Morgan is on the case, and we’re moving full speed ahead towards a beta launch in early August, with more features coming soon after that. In addition to the contributions from Mike and his team, Tara Shahian and Jeff Zeller are currently plowing through the endless list of details that accompany a site release, and it’s exciting to see the progress being made.

One of our big pre-launch tasks involves bringing in as much of the existing Firefox-inspired community art (like these wallpapers) that we can, so if you have anything you’d like to be included in the beta launch please contact me directly.

So, to sum up, there’s lots of good stuff happening in the world of Mozilla design (and I haven’t even mentioned all the activity happening with Personas). More coming soon!

On the technical side, this page also features 3.5’s new @font-face capabilities, serving up some slick comic booky text as real HTML text rather than a clunky graphic. The robot is happy about that, too.

Onward and upward!

As I wrote last week, the upcoming Firefox 3.5 release will be significantly faster than any previous version of Firefox. To spread the word about this achievement, we’re asking members of worldwide Mozilla community to share videos of their own speedy feats.

If you’d like to join the fun, here’s all you have to do:

1. Record a short video of you at your fastest. You can be playing piano, running laps or writing a blog post…just make it fast!

2. Visit www.fastestfirefox.com and follow the easy instructions on how to upload your video to us.

3. We’ll be editing the best submissions into a single compilation, so check back about a week after the 3.5 release. If we use your clip, you’ll get a Firefox 3.5 t-shirt (not to mention great karma and a story you can tell your grandchildren).

Need inspiration? Don’t miss the video from the incredible Steven Purugganan, who at the age of 11 already holds multiple world records for sport stacking. If you’re not familiar with sport stacking just watch the clip and all will be revealed (but you may need to watch it a few times because it truly goes by in a blur).

Can you keep up with Steven? Be sure to visit www.fastestfirefox.com and show us your speed!

Thanks to Josh Burcham for another cool illustration in our ongoing series.

The robot is still on his quest for Shiretoko, and with another beta release scheduled for later this spring there’s definitely still more of his story ahead. Keep on downloading to find out more…

Also, while I’m on the subject, I should mention that we’ve revised the beta page on mozilla.com to make it more download-friendly. Our hope is that the big button (colored orange so as not to confuse it with the green button we traditionally use for official releases) will encourage people to give it a try, and the “Important Information” section to the right will give them the full context before they do so. Thanks to Steven Garrity for his help putting this together

The robot himself wasn’t all that visible on the 3.1. beta 1 first run page – it was just a back view as he prepared to begin his journey – but as 3.1 is taking shape, so is the robot. His look has changed a bit, too…with the help of mecha artist Josh Burcham, he’s evolved into a style more appropriate for his Japanese surroundings (speaking of which, the scene was loosely based on this photo of Lake Ashi).

Stay tuned for more…in the meantime don’t forget to download Firefox 3.1 beta 2!

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:

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.

Check it out:
about:robots

(via Justin Dolske)

At the suggestion of Deb Richardson, we decided to immortalize the various dramas by turning them into a laptop sticker. Tim Hogan from the Royal Order was there to experience it all firsthand and was kind enough to translate the excitement into the artwork below (based, of course, on the original design by Nobox).

So, if you did indeed survive the Summit you should be getting one of these in the mail sometime in the next few weeks: