One thing I really like about Mozilla is that our open source philosophy extends to more than just code. For example, our rather untraditional logo usage policy allows anyone to essentially do whatever they want with the Firefox logo as long as they follow a few basic rules and don’t personally profit from it. The result has been some pretty amazing community-powered stuff over the years.

Thanks in large part to these efforts, the Firefox logo has become one of the most widely recognized and iconic images in the tech world, so it’s very important that we continue take good care of it. One way to do this is to a establish a clear set of guidelines that explain what the appropriate uses of the logo are (and aren’t). Although we already have a basic framework in place, one of my upcoming projects will be to create a Firefox style guide that’s more useful to community members, MoCo employees, partners and anyone else who might need it.

I’m currently envisioning this guide as a microsite that contains details about logo usage, do’s and don’ts and suggested copy tone, among other things. The idea is to codify and communicate our existing guidelines as clearly as possible rather than imposing a bunch of new ones on people.

What I absolutely don’t want to do is create anything that resembles a classic corporate style guide, where some guy in the central office hands down a set of rules that everyone has to follow (and be restricted by)…that would be wrong for many reasons. So, to do this in the most Mozillaish way possible I’m looking for some community members to help with its development.

My goal is to assemble a small advisory panel to provide counsel throughout the process. I don’t think it will be a huge amount of work…just a matter of sharing your ideas and opinions every now and then. Some experience with design and/or branding is definitely preferred, but not required. I’m looking for a diverse set of backgrounds, so if you’re interested tell me about yourself in a quick email (jslater at mozilla dot com) and we’ll see where things go from there.

Thanks!

After the beta 5 release, it felt like we needed one final piece of robot artwork to really wrap up the entire Firefox 3 saga…something suitably epic and triumphant. So, in honor of today’s announcement that we have an official release date, I present to you:

(Click here for a bigger version.)

When I initially pitched the idea to Nobox, my concept was something like a triptych (quadtych?) that showed all the previous beta pages. Fortunately, they had the much better idea of combining the existing art with something new and even more grandiose, in the style of the classic Drew Struzan movie posters. From there, we ran with the movie poster concept, right down to the “Rated O for Open Source” tag at the bottom.

Big thanks to Jay, Hector and everyone at Nobox for all the creativity and expertise they’ve brought to this entire process. Finally, here are a few more random notes about the robot and what happens next:

* If you’re a fan of this art, we’ll soon be adding it to the Mozilla Store as a limited edition 18×24″ poster. More details on that to come…
* For a behind-the-scenes look at the early stages of the poster, check out the initial concept sketch.
* Currently the www.firefoxvictory.com URL points to the main Firefox download page, but I have a few ideas for turning it into a more participatory robot-related site. Stay tuned!
* Lastly, here’s a Flickr set of the entire series of Firefox 3 robot art.

(Digg this)

It got a little overshadowed by all the excitement over Download Day, but we also re-launched the Mozilla Party Central site last week. The site been around for awhile, of course, but with the help of designer Monique Johnson we gave it a fresh and festive new look for the Firefox 3 download season.

So far there are already almost 300 parties registered in locations around the world, so look for one in your area or start your own! And if you’re in the Bay Area, don’t miss the opportunity to help build a real-life Firefox 3 robot.

I’ve seen this car a few times while biking home through Oakland and finally stopped yesterday and took some pictures. I love homemade campaign signs (and have seen tons of Obama ones around this spring…an interesting phenomenon):

Close-ups of the car are here and here.

As anyone who’s spent much time around the Mozilla community knows, t-shirts are an incredibly important part of our culture. So, when Mary showed me a stack of classic shirts she’d collected from Mitchell, chofmann, Myk and others, I thought it would be fun to document all the Mozilla t-shirts throughout the years (with a few Netscape ones thrown in for historical context).

After some detective work, here are the 53 shirts I’ve collected so far (arranged in rough chronological order so you can see the progression):

If you want to see them up close, I’ve created a Flickr set of all the images. I’m quite sure that there are plenty of shirts I missed, so if you have one that’s not pictured here please let me know. I’d like this to be as comprehensive as possible.

This is sure to be a constantly evolving thing…I know of at least four new shirts currently in development that will have to be added soon. So, enjoy this little look back through Mozilla history and stay tuned for future updates.

By now, you’ve probably read all about Download Day, our community-powered effort to set a Guinness World Record for Firefox 3 downloads. Very cool stuff.

When Mary and I were brainstorming potential design directions for the Download Day site, we were particularly inspired by the global pledge map (for example, if you’re curious about how many people in Liechtenstein plan on helping set the record, now it’s easy to find out). That sort of friendly competition between nations led us to the Olympics, and since we’re big fans of the art deco style, we decided the design should harken back to the look of vintage Olympics in particular. Coincidentally, that theme is a nice tie-in to the Gran Paradiso artwork, which was also done as an art deco homage.

We worked with Nobox (designers of the Firefox 3 robot, Operation Firefox and the Mozilla Store, among many others) to create the site, and as always they did a great job executing (and improving) on the ideas in our original design brief. The site’s header is particularly reminiscent of that classic style we were going for:

Another one of my favorite Download Day design elements is the globe shown below (this is the ‘before’ version…people who participate in Download Day will see an even cooler ‘after’ version, but I don’t want to ruin that surprise). It has an art deco feel too, but also reminds me a bit of the Unisphere from the 1964 World’s Fair:

If you’re into this design style, I should also mention that there’s a nice series of Download Day buttons and banners you can put on your own site to help spread the word. And don’t forget to make your pledge today!

From today’s Mozilla Store photo shoot:

(photo by David Rolnitzky; painting by Emanuel Leutze)

I can’t stop watching this:

Asa tipped me off to this interesting post by Isriya Paireepairit in which Isriya notes certain similarities between the Firefox 3 robot and one featured in Coldplay’s “Talk” video. Funny stuff.

I’ll go on record, though, as saying that our badass open source robot could beat up Coldplay’s wimpy soft rock robot any day. Chris Martin, if you’re up for the challenge you know where to find me.

Dealing with phone companies, insurance companies, banks, etc has caused most of us to become so accustomed to terrible customer service that when someone actually does it well it feels like a tremendous breath of fresh air…something worth shouting about, even. So, that’s exactly what I’m doing.

I just had one of the best customer service experiences of my life with Dreamhost, the service that hosts this very blog. I’d been having some weird technical issues, and not only were they friendly, human and fast in their responses, they went way above and beyond the call of duty to get everything straightened out for me. So, if you’re ever in need of a hosting service for your site, definitely check these guys out. They’re great.

Like they say, customer service is the new marketing. I don’t think that’s necessarily a ‘new’ development, but otherwise this blog post is definitely proving that point.