Categories: General

Arrival

Seven months since setting out to refresh the Mozilla brand experience, we’ve reached the summit. Thousands of emails, hundreds of meetings, dozens of concepts, and three rounds of research later, we have something to share. If you’re just joining this process, you can get oriented here and here.

At the core of this project is the need for Mozilla’s purpose and brand to be better understood by more people. We want to be known as the champions for a healthy Internet. An Internet where we are all free to explore and discover and create and innovate without barriers or limitations. Where power is in the hands of many, not held by few. An Internet where our safety, security and identity are respected.

Today, we believe these principles matter more than ever. And as a not-for-profit organization, we’re uniquely able to build products, technologies, and programs that keep the Internet growing and healthy, with individuals informed and in control of their online lives.

Our brand identity – our logo, our voice, our design – is an important signal of what we believe in and what we do. And because we are so committed to ensuring the Internet is a healthy global public resource, open and accessible to everyone, we’ve designed the language of the Internet into our brand identity.

Today, we’re sharing our new logo and a proposed color palette, language architecture, and imagery approach. Remaining true to our intent to engage with the design and tech community throughout this open design process, we welcome your feedback on these elements as we build out our design guidelines.

Let’s go into a bit more detail on the components of our brand identity system, developed in collaboration with our exceptional London-based design partner johnson banks.

Our logo

Our logo with its nod to URL language reinforces that the Internet is at the heart of Mozilla. We are committed to the original intent of the link as the beginning of an unfiltered, unmediated experience into the rich content of the Internet.

Mozilla-12jan-1500px_logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The font for the wordmark and accompanying copy lines is Zilla. Created for us by Typotheque in the Netherlands, Zilla is free and open to all.

Typotheque was an historic partner to Mozilla. They were the first type-foundry to release Web-based fonts, and Mozilla’s Firefox web browser was an early adopter of Web fonts. We chose to partner with Peter Bilak from Typotheque because of their deep knowledge of localization of fonts, and our commitment to having a font that includes languages beyond English. Prior to partnering with Typotheque, we received concepts and guidance from Anton Koovit and FontSmith.

johnsonbanks_Mozilla_zilla_type_2

Selected to evoke the Courier font used as the original default in coding, Zilla has a journalistic feel. It bucks the current convention of sans serif fonts. Anyone can create the Mozilla logo by typing and highlighting with the Zilla font, making the logo open and democratic. The black box surrounding the logo is a key building block of the design, and echoes the way we all select type in toolbars and programs.

Mozilla comes first in any application of the system, just as the protocol begins any internet journey. Copy lines, colors, and images all flow from that starting point, much like a web journey.

Our color palette

Our color palette, derived from the highlight colors used by Firefox and other web browsers, distinguishes our brand from its contemporaries. Color flows into our logo and changes according to the context in which the logo is used. As we develop our style guide, we’ll define color pairings, intensities, and guidelines.

Mozilla-12jan-1500px_color

Our language and language architecture

Copy lines to the right or below the logo hold core Mozilla messages.  They also hold program, event, and team names — simplifying and unifying a multitude of different Mozilla activities. It will now be easier to know that something is “from” Mozilla and understand how our global initiatives connect and reinforce one another.

The system enables Mozilla volunteer communities across the globe to create their own identity by selecting color and choosing imagery unique to them. Meanwhile the core blocks of our system, bounding boxes and typography, will provide the consistency, making it clear that these communities are part of one Mozilla.

Mozilla-12jan-1500px_architecture

Our Imagery

As we looked at the elements of our brand identity, the concept of one image or icon standing for the whole of Mozilla, and the entirety of the Internet, seemed anachronistic. Since imagery is an important reflection of the diversity and richness of the Internet, however, we’ve made it an important component of our system.

 

In digital applications, ever-changing imagery represents the unlimited bounty of the online ecosystem. Dynamic imagery allows the identity of Mozilla to evolve with the Internet itself, always fresh and new. Static applications of our identity system include multiple, layered images as if taken as a still frame within a moving digital experience.

Mozilla-12jan-1500px_imagery

How might it work? We intend to invite artists, designers, and technologists to contribute to an imagery collective, and we’ll code curated GIFs, animations, and still images to flow into mozilla.org and and other digital experiences. Through this open design approach, we will engage new design contributors and communities, and make more imagery available to all under Creative Commons. We’re looking for input from creative communities to help shape and expand this idea.

Mozilla-12jan-1500px_apps2

 

 

 

We will roll out the new brand identity in phases, much as we have with concepts in this open design process, so please be patient with our progress. As we develop our design system, we look forward to hearing your feedback and suggestions using the comments below. You’ve been with us from the start and we’re glad you’re here. We’ll continue to share updates and comments in this space.

Mozilla-12jan-1500px_environmental

Mozilla-12jan-1500px_apps1

 

Photo credits
Brandenburg Gate https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berlin_-_0266_-_16052015_-_Brandenburger_Tor.jpg
Iron Filings https://www.flickr.com/photos/oskay/4581194252

240 comments on “Arrival”

  1. Aleksey wrote on

    Very cool idea for new logo. You will sell stickers with him? Wanna it.

    1. incko wrote on

      I’d totally interested in buying stickers of the Logo! (And please make them available for worldwide shipping)

      Oh, and where can I download the Zilla font?

      Greetings

      1. Tim Murray wrote on

        Thanks, Aleksey! We’ll have the font available within a month or so as we build out our brand guide. And we’ll figure out a way to make stickers available as well. Stay tuned!

        1. Vivienne wrote on

          Awe, really gonna miss the little fox! Is he going away for good? He’s soft and friendly looking, cute too! (Remember it’s “Fire “Fox”) Sometimes brands are intrinsically comforting.

          1. Tim Murray wrote on

            Hi Vivienne, This is not a replacement for the Firefox logo. It’s for Mozilla. Learn more at Mozilla.org. Thanks for commenting!

          2. M Munn wrote on

            Firefox original logo is ultimately supreme… please do not abandon completely… Please Please Please Please !!!

        2. Vivienne wrote on

          One more thing…the new logos remind me of “Sportswear” Sorry, it’s just we’ve had our logos for so long, it’s become Cozy! Fight for the Fox! =D

          1. Tim Murray wrote on

            Thanks for contributing, Vivienne. This brand identity is for Mozilla, not Firefox. Mozilla is the nonprofit champion of a healthy Internet and the maker of Firefox, the open-source browser. We will always fight for the fox.

        3. Peter wrote on

          i’m so proud to donate for Mozilla.. Thanks Team

        4. cici wrote on

          I have to admit when I just saw the “M” on my google search page, it reminded me of the “modern farmer” font. They have a similar feeling about them.

      2. noithathaiphong wrote on

        Thank you for this sharing

    2. Poppy wrote on

      i really dig the new concept and type driven identity. personally would have moved away from the slab serif and something more of a minimal digital feel like akkurat mono. great project, love the glyphs :)

    3. Sergei wrote on

      I think it’s not a pretty good idea – only for those people for which the Latin alphabet is native – 1.5 billion (20%) against 5,5 billion of other people in the world.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/04/23/the-worlds-languages-in-7-maps-and-charts/

      And only for IT geeks. If you want to spread more widely you need to be more understandably for ordinary users.

      1. Clairvaux wrote on

        What’s your point ? Are you telling us that Mozilla should adopt Russian as its primary language ? Arabic ? Chinese ? Kaspersky is a Russian company, but its logo is not in cyrillic characters. Chinese worldwide businesses don’t trade internationally using the Chinese language and Chinese ideograms.

        http://www.kaspersky.ru/multi-device-security

        1. Wilfredo Cespedes wrote on

          I don’t agree with @Sergie because English is now the international language of politics and commerce. As was French in the 20th Century. The Chinese actually comprise more English speaking people than the US and other English speaking countries because of their population size. Your direction is the right one because it gives way for evolving in a common platform. I think, and agree with your efforts. Thank you for doing this now more than ever. The changes are global and I’m glad you are working to make it inclusive and open.

      2. Alex wrote on

        ordinary users say and do stupid things, they need a champion of free internet as the internet is just very ununderstandably for them

    4. RAHUL DEV wrote on

      awesome look but its better if u add nuclear fission graphics in mozilla logo..

  2. nicolas wrote on

    This blogpost finally :)

    Quick, unthinkingly reaction: solid wordmark, fitting palette, and really good surprise to see a custom typeface in the delivery! All three feel quite Mozilla to me, so I guess it’s a success, I can see it working and having the right voice.
    A clearer art direction for the imagery would be welcome, but maybe we can see where it goes from here and refine it along the way. Or it can be the seasonal thing that changes from time to time, the part of the identity that updates when a refresh is needed, the type and wordmark staying rooted along the years.

    Questions now: when will font files, vector logo, and public brand guidelines be available? When will we be able to play with it? When can we update all the Wikipedia articles about Mozilla, local communities’ websites headers, etc? How will deploying it take place on Mozilla side?

    1. Tim Murray wrote on

      Thanks, Nicolas. You’re right in assuming that imagery will be constantly updating to reflect the diversity and beauty of the Internet in real time. Our design system gives us the flexibility to adapt the imagery to reflect season, current events, or even the work of a particular technologist or artist. We are at work on a brand guide that will include all of the elements we need, so please stay tuned.

      1. nicolas wrote on

        Thank you for the reply Tim. I’m looking forward to seeing all of this!
        Otherwise, I noticed the version of the logo currently up on mozilla.org has shorter inner margins on the sides. Is there a mistake in either that one or the one introduced here (which looks better with increased margins)?

  3. bob wrote on

    Very cool. Where can I find the zilla font?

    1. Tim Murray wrote on

      Thanks, Bob! We’re at work on our brand guide and will make Zilla available within the next month or so. Assuming all goes as planned, Typotheque will create Cyrillic and Indic character sets as well.

      1. bob wrote on

        Awesome, it’s great looking font, looking forward to playing around with it. The new logo is very slick! Keep up the great work

        1. Anivar Aravind wrote on

          If you need any help with Indic character set and reviewing, we , Indicproject can help. Please let me know . I am a Mozillian.

          I also suggest to open up the font design phase accepting patches in true spirit of open design .

      2. Camilo wrote on

        That’s great! Waiting for it… Will it be monospaced, or have a monospaced version? It looks like it would be really nice to have in an IDE or terminal.

      3. Lisa wrote on

        Having been a typesetter years ago with the original typesetting computers, I was a little disappointed that the new font wasn’t used as the type style for the articles! First thing I checked. But, good job and good luck!

  4. Boring Sydney wrote on

    so much MEH!

  5. Lyonel Marcente wrote on

    Brilliant. Nice fusing of both concepts.
    The concept of building living collages with CC images would normally feel cheap, but in keeping the theme of the internet of the people it’s an extraordinary approach.
    Also, it reminds me of the millenium’s beggining, bursting with elements but before the shines-and-shadows. It looks great and different to the half-retro half-plain trend now.

  6. Hamed Yahyaei wrote on

    I like the philosophy behind the design of new logo :-) Good job and good luck with the design of brand identity!

  7. JC wrote on

    I love this new cool branding of Mozilla. <3

  8. Danish Raza wrote on

    I’m impressed, very impressed! great work, clear & retched colors with message

  9. Floris van Leerdam wrote on

    Well that looks a bit familiair.

    2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20120826000527/http://www.floro.nl/content-management-systeem/features/

    1. Sally G wrote on

      It seems to me that the :// is common to both, and possibly for the same reason—it represents the Internet, the start of a URL, which is central to Mozilla (which I guess I will now be writing as Moz://a—no, I guess not—it works as a logo, but not in text!) and presumably to Floro, with which I am not familiar.
      That said, the application, new typeface (which I like a lot, especially the “old style” numerals—and yea! for serifs, so I can tell the difference between cap Is and lower-case Ls even when standing alone).

  10. Ross James wrote on

    This is the logo equivalent of Martin Shkreli’s face.

  11. alex_mayorga wrote on

    ¡Hola!

    Loving it from moz://a.mx =)

    ¡Gracias!

  12. Jimmy Rustles wrote on

    You should look up what that hand sign means in other countries.

    1. Tim Murray wrote on

      Thanks, Jimmy. Noted.

      1. michael wrote on

        ya it can be similar to the middle finger in Brazil which is funny since Nixon signed at a crowd in Brazil back in the 1950s when disembarking his plane

    2. Gus wrote on

      Seconding this. It is rude in some countries.

  13. Yofie Setiawan wrote on

    Looks brave enough to me…

  14. Greg K Nicholson wrote on

    Some thoughts:
    * I don’t immediately love it.
    * …but I’m willing to be impressed.
    * It looks very mid-late-2000s, which may be deliberate. (In particular, BBC Radio 6 Music used to use a slab serif in pastel blue text-boxes.)
    * I thought web browsers didn’t really expose the protocol to users any more.
    * I thought the motivation for the rebrand was that our old wordmark wasn’t a strong enough identity, and we can’t resume using the old dino for some unspecified reason. The example of MDN in the new identity still uses the dino, which suggests that the new identity still doesn’t have a good replacement icon.
    * The example on the office wall reminds me of IE6’s About box.
    * The Fira font still looks good with the new identity on mozilla.org. It seems to pair well with Zilla. We should keep using Fira – perhaps for more product-focused application; whereas Zilla could be for more activism/organisation-focused uses.
    * If you make an example in red that says “This technology could fall into the right hands”, you’ll probably win me over.
    * It isn’t *not*-Mozilla.
    * The coloured versions of the logo remind me of Inverse.com.
    * I want to like it.
    * I hope I eventually like it.

  15. Sergey wrote on

    Ugly, bad geometry, bad readability. Design for design? Why did you do that?

    1. Benjamin Kerensa wrote on

      +1

    2. Vic wrote on

      +1

  16. Steven Hoober wrote on

    Would love to see a monospaced version if Zilla. They come up, but I don’t love most current versions and this seems an obvious tie in to the old.

  17. OGenius wrote on

    Amazing work! This new logo is powerful, elegant and definitely well thought! The colors are also vibrant and engaging. But I have to be honest: I will miss the little Firefox…

  18. Dan Jones wrote on

    That new logo is going to be confusing. People already disagree on how to pronounce Mozilla, without throwing moz://a into the mix.

    1. Benjamin Kerensa wrote on

      +1

  19. Tom S. wrote on

    This is horrible. I don’t mind a re-brand, but wow, this is just ugly stuff.

  20. jp wrote on

    sooooooo cool!

  21. silver wrote on

    My last comment was deleted so I’ll be more clear. It’s bad for user experience to supply a string that is not valid where it is expected to be used, requiring the user to manipulate it before it can become useful. If a user types moz://a into a browser address bar, they will either be given a protocol violation, or a google results page in which an unrelated party is #1 for organic results. This is unfriendly to your users.

    1. Tim Murray wrote on

      Hi Silver, We are addressing this issue and will have an appropriate redirect when someone types moz://a into a Firefox browser. Thanks!

      1. John wrote on

        A redirect is OK I guess, but what if they are a IE or Chrome user trying to switch to Firefox? I know a few Chrome users that mistakenly refer to Firefox as just “Mozilla”. If they were to type moz://a into Chrome or IE, they are not going to be able to reach a relevant Firefox download page.

        1. Tim Murray wrote on

          That’s a great point, John. We know we still have a lot of work to do to distinguish Mozilla from Firefox, and it’s going to take time for people to understand that Mozilla is the nonprofit champion of a healthy Internet, while Firefox is an open-source browser. The logo is the only place that this unique expression of our name (with ://) will appear, and our hypothesis is that most people will still write and say “Mozilla” when referring to us. We’ll continue to monitor this and seek ways to improve our standing in search results so that Firefox is easy to find through Mozilla for those who still consider the two as one.

  22. xx xxx wrote on

    Never understood why companies feel that they constantly have to change their logos.

    This new logo will not help you.

    The dinosaur head was best.

  23. Artyom Gavrichenkov wrote on

    Meh.

    First, it’d be hard to google this “moz://a” if you haven’t heard about Mozilla Foundation before. Hopefully Google Search would adapt, but the likes of Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, you name it — would not.

    Second, I personally just can’t force myself into reading this as “mozilla”, not “moz’a”. Maybe I, as a programmer, is not a good pick for a typical sample of a human being, yet so.

    1. Leif wrote on

      Ok it’s not just me. If confusion is what the branding is after, then success! It makes me want to say “Moz” and then stutter. As someone who grew up with the web I’ve apparently grown to omit the “://” sequence of characters when I see it.

      It’s clever, but perhaps too clever?

    2. Paul Brinkley wrote on

      If they hold company dances, will they call them moz://a balls?

  24. SNL wrote on

    Such eighties. New logo = sick. Looking forward to style guide & adaptation.

  25. Christine Prefontaine wrote on

    Gotta say, I was a bit worried along the way. But looks fantastic. Has really come together nicely. Kudos to the open design team!

  26. Rick James wrote on

    This reeks of attempted tech-trendiness. The colors are great, but the letter replacement reminds me of when Mountain Dew and Taco Bell were using “Xtreme” to describe their entire product line. It’s like you’re pandering to a tech culture that really doesn’t like companies who pander. Add in the imagery of stale meme subjects, and the cycle is complete.

    Mozilla used to stand out because they WERE different, not because they were trying to look different. You need to find a way to tie the functional roots to brand messaging. This is a better example of where Mozilla has gone wrong than it is an encouraging sign they are determined to right the ship.

  27. Rob B wrote on

    I like it overall, but won’t it confuse people when spelling mozilla? Do they type mozilla or moz://a? Seems a bit gimmicky. All the other stuff I really like though, good work.

  28. Alexander wrote on

    : / oldgood dino or this variant(dino eye) much better, i love animals :)

    mozilla

  29. Benjamin Kerensa wrote on

    As a long time Mozillian (Longer than the creative director Tim) I think the identity is unsettling and as bad as the Hotbot or Lycos logo (you remember them right? No, almost nobody remember them)

    The identity doesn’t work with hashtags and can’t be used in urls or usernames which means a fractured identity because for urls, usernames r hashtags you will have to continue to use Mozilla not Moz://a which means brand inconsistency.

    Anyways I figure this decision will be backpedaled in the future. I don’t think this will stick.

    1. Jean-Philippe Baril wrote on

      +1

    2. Tim Murray wrote on

      Hi Benjamin, Thanks for weighing in on this effort. Our name is still Mozilla, and is still written and spoken as Mozilla. The logo is a stylized way to express our name, not a new name. #mozilla will be how it’s expressed.

      1. Ardi wrote on

        Yes, I am sure your name is still Mozilla, but how do you avoid the misreading for new user?

        1. Tim Murray wrote on

          Good question, Ardi. We have tested the logo with different groups of users globally and found that it is readable by the great majority as “mozilla”. It will be a rare case when the logo is used without any surrounding reference to the name of the company. In that case, the mental puzzle of figuring out how to say it in one’s mind creates a more memorable experience – not a bad outcome for a brand.

          1. Gerald wrote on

            So you’re saying you don’t mind confusing people and making them spend their time to read your company’s name? That may well be memorable, but it won’t be good memories. It also contrasts with the journalistic, no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point ethos exemplified by the new font and simple, bold and open colour scheme. Which I like, by the way.
            (I agree with other commenter by the way, keep using other font for body text as it’s easier on the eyes – reserve Zilla for headlines, logos, impact statements.)

            I fear most users soon won’t know what :// stands for, while those who do will stutter and be slightly annoyed every time they read it. For a company that cares about the open internet and open standards, moz:// embodies the opposite: a proprietary URL hack using a non-standard pretend-protocol that can really only provide access to one https website in a subset of browsers.

          2. Sally G wrote on

            If there is confusion in reading—and I don’t think there will be much—then that IS a bad outcome; if someone is seeing that flaw as an advantage because ze is married to the outcome, then Houston, we have a problem! I actually would expect it to be used without the company name a lot, so would not expect to rely on that cue.
            All that said, confusion should disappear quickly with familiarity, so if it is truly very minor at this point, I would say we’re good to go.

          3. Beryl wrote on

            Rubbish..

    3. Alberto Urra wrote on

      I think you are absolutely right.

  30. Claudio wrote on

    I too am looking forward to a monospaced Zilla font.

  31. TuggyNE wrote on

    Well, I finally understand why Mozilla dropped Thunderbird. Nobody at Mozilla knows the difference between the web and the Internet anymore: if it doesn’t have a visible address bar displaying a protocol, it’s not the Internet, apparently.

    Aesthetically, the logo is very clever. Extremely clever, in fact.

  32. Brock McLellan wrote on

    An open-source organization with style! Congratulations.

    brock

  33. Max Ellinger wrote on

    I love it so much. Amazing work.

  34. Jonathan Chan wrote on

    Will you be making t-shirts available with the new logo? That would be really cool!

  35. Kade Morton wrote on

    This logo will work, but at the end of the day what this boils down to is replacing the i with a : and ll’s with //’s. Given the fact this has taken seven months, thousands of emails, hundreds of meetings, all of this costs in terms of salary and work that wasn’t done because the font was being worked on, dozens of concepts, three rounds of research, partnering with two different design companies for the font, I’m not sure the outcome of all that being a :// is value for money/time invested.

  36. BZ wrote on

    I like its clarity and flexibility. I wasn’t a fan of the protocol pun route. But the new additions balance out features of the protocol wordmark that were too “hardcore techy”, boring, or static. It’s like before we only had salty, dry popcorn. Now we have both salty, dry popcorn and sweet, wet soda. A great complementary combination. It also has the advantage of being flexible in tone for multiple contexts by either changing the content/style of the non-text elements or by changing the amount/size of non-text elements relative to the protocol wordmark.

    Once the non-text elements have more constraints on how they are composed (e.g. always 3 to 5 elements, must overlap in certain ways, should follow one of 4-5 color strategies, etc.) the visual branding will be top-notch.

  37. David Juicer wrote on

    At least they didn’t fall into the trap of using that same crappy sans-serif font word-mark-only logo everyone is using now. This one actually looks like someone designed it.

    I like the look, but it’s a damn shame a connection to the old dinosaur theme couldn’t be found.

    The :// protocol delimiter in the logo is cool, but Firefox hides this by default nowadays — will this aspect of the design be lost on the average user?

    Finally, unrelated, but this logo will have been an exercise in futility if Mozilla doesn’t abandon the reckless and suicidal plan to remove support for extensions from Firefox. Please, please please please please reconsider. :-(

  38. david wrote on

    srsly?
    guys this logo is not really readable, hire a real designer next time

  39. Texturefox wrote on

    When just about anyone on the planet sees The Golden Arches their association with McDonald’s is instant. Nothing else is necessary to know who that company is and what it does.

    What Mozilla is doing is more calculated and brazen than some seem to give them credit for. Could McDonald’s Arches be more effective if they also conveyed more than company identity?

    Imagine Mozilla’s example with McDonald’s Arches. In the immediate vicinity of the arches, for every product or core company value, appropriate design and imagery follows. When a commercial advertises French Fries we may see a container spilling out in beautiful slow motion – but in a corner rests a static logo, “Gold Arches” + “Tiny container of French Fries”. Would this better inform the public that McDonald’s sells French Fries?

    Or say, McDonald’s changes the color of arches for further product or idea identification. A pink arch is for breast cancer awareness, or is it to let us know McDonald’s sells strawberry milkshakes? Is the green arch with half a leaf telling me that salads are on sale or are they going green and reducing their carbon footprint?

    The most successful logos are simple and only convey company identity. Expanding on that and avoiding convolution is a challenge; before too long things can be confusing and redundant with little standardization. That seems to be what is bothering some dissenters.

  40. Wasi wrote on

    Such utter waste of time. What’s wrong with you?
    The logo was fine as is.

    The new one doesn’t make sense. If a new person saw it they wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. Moz-col-slash-a? Moz-co-ss-a?
    I can’t even figure it out. The logo is just immature. Like this nonsense “MoZilLa” kids use.

    Search engines will also have problems with :// colon and slashes.

    Some have asked if Mozilla is a sinking ship. It sure is. Mozilla what happened to you?

    1. Tim Murray wrote on

      Hi Wasi,
      Thanks for your comment. We’ve tested the new logo’s legibility as the word “mozilla” globally and found that the great majority of people can pronounce it. Those who find it difficult at first persevere and feel a sense of accomplishment, and feel that this makes the logo and name more memorable. Our name is still Mozilla, still written and spoken as Mozilla. The logo is a stylized representation of the name, not a new name. Thanks for contributing to this effort.

      1. Aaron wrote on

        “Our name is still Mozilla, still written and spoken as Mozilla.”
        You keep saying this. Is it because (with the new logo) it is not clear?
        “Written” as you say, and logo-ed as the new logo is, they’re very similar looking. The wide audience you want to make things clearer for, SHOULD NOT be confused, but may be. While it looks cool, computery, (webby?) and geeky, I don’t know a single person that has encountered double slashes (//) in years. I remember when the latest Firefox update (was it 3?) allowed the user to type just website.com/.org / etc. (thank you Mozilla). And then there is bookmark searching from the address bar (so easy, thanks again Mozilla!) Who types “http://…” anymore? That was a while ago wasn’t? A piece of the past that nobody misses isn’t really a signpost for the future, is it? On the other hand, people love dinosaurs.

  41. Rob wrote on

    Why force someone to use a specific color? Having color palette as a guideline forces people to think and follow what you guys created.

    Is that the behavior you want people to remember Mozilla?

    I see internet as an open canvas for creativity, we should allow people to show that. Having a black slab of logo as a brand is cool; it can be interpreted as a “window” to the openness and show flexibility while maintaining the logo.

    Digital media moves very fast, one year we are using soft-color, then strong, then vibrant. Forcing specific color usage would only hinder the whole process of accepting the logo in my opinion. Then the perception to the brand would not aged very well.

    We are living in an age where internet should empower people to try something.

    1. Tim Murray wrote on

      Hi Rob, thanks for your comment. This is our starting point with a color palette, which we consider an open design tool that others will be able to contribute to, not a rigid rule that will be policed. Mozilla communities can select from it or choose another legible color that reflects their local identity better, and the palette will evolve over time to remain current. Does that address your concern?

      1. Rob wrote on

        That sounds great! Thanks for the clarification.

        Looking forward to see the next step.

    2. Sally G wrote on

      Iwas going to make a similar reply to an earlier comment, so thanks. I appreciate Tim’s reply—just what I would have expected.

  42. Eloy wrote on

    Bravo!

  43. Leo wrote on

    Well done Mozilla. Your previous logo was completely unremarkable. I applaud the fresh and distinct look and love the subtle touch of reminding yourselves and the world at large that the internet is the soul of mozilla.

  44. Seveti wrote on

    I prefer the old design. New one feels like they are forcing modern design a bit to much.

  45. GiacomoL wrote on

    Thanks for making me feel young like in the ’90s, when anyone could call himself a “designer” just by playing with fonts in Photoshop. I honestly can’t understand why people bother with design schools, when institutions like Mozilla will just pick the cheapest typography hacks that 16-year-olds can come up with. “Let’s make our name harder to google, yeah!”… have you seen the first search result for “moz://a”? Is your designer paid by moz.com? Are you deliberately trying to hide?

    You gave the world a lesson in branding with the original Firefox logo, and now this. How the mighty have fallen.

  46. Leonardo wrote on

    Finally ’90s Are BACK!

    so colorful
    so messy

    i’m delighted and puzzled at the same time. Will this rebrand convince the internet community?

    Hope for the best.

  47. Robert Carriere wrote on

    Look, I don’t envy any person(s) tasked with accomplishing something like this. You need to ensure it still evokes thoughts of a brand that is (in more ways than one) a dinosaur that has survived the early days of the modern internet, while projecting relevancy for the future.

    I have functional issues with “Moz://a” that others have expressed (the “://” makes it difficult the search/hashtag, etc). But I cannot deny the simple brilliance of it.

    You did, however, lose me at the “our imagery” section. I hope that the collection of images displayed is placeholder, because it looks like the visual equivalent of buzzwords. You do know what buzzwords are right? Linguistic hokum that marketing uses to trick CEOs with more money than brains, because the CEOs don’t understand the nuts and bolts of their company, but by God they’ve heard of “the cloud”. They don’t know what it is, or when it’s appropriate, but it sounds impressive! Everyone outside of marketing and management **hates** buzzwords. Hell, marketing might not even like them, but they don’t have to pitch ideas to Joe Nobody.

    The collections of images and memes look like noise without meaning that pollutes the simple elegance of “Moz://a”. And they can be problematic. Who owns the original pictures? Suddenly grumpy cat’s lawyer is knocking on your door. Maybe the meaning of the meme is hidden or changes, use a stereotypical cartoon frog wearing a beret for Moz://a France, and you’re unintentionally supporting the alt-right or nazi-isms. Trying to force new memes almost never works, and the meaning ends up inverted…

    Stick with basic iconography, like the rocket for emerging technologies. For National branches, use a simplified map coloured in with it’s flag (and *maybe* one additional national icon). If you use too many visual cues you’ve overcomplicated the message and risk shooting yourself in the foot.

    1. Yackums wrote on

      +1

  48. Ian M. Andrews wrote on

    This logo here, is an absolute joke. Whilst the moz://a idea was indeed worked off from, this logo is decidedly…nineties-era than 2010 era. Because of how dated the logo looks, the company is certainly not going to appeal to the general public, and people will probably deride Mozilla as some sort of nerdy c**p. In addition, the imagery in the rebranding is too reminiscent of the images used during AOL’s rebranding to Aol in the early 2010s, and when AOL rebranded, perception of the new logo was also quite negative, and worsened perception of the brand. So, in summary, the new Mozilla logo is already dated as a result of its surrounding imagery, and the company should seriously consider retooling the rebrand to remove the dated elements and incorporate a more timeless design, or scrap the logo altogether and start the design process from scratch, with a timeless design given priority over “artsy” designs. The design can still be simple, it just needs to be a more timeless design.

    1. Vladimir Krstic wrote on

      +1

  49. Hamish wrote on

    Dreadful, gaudy and inconsistent graphic language, with a hot mess of ‘flexibility’ over focus. A typeface that is not classic, edgy or on trend. Confusing messaging that ensures the public at large will still have no idea who you are or what you do.

    If that’s who you are as a company, then you’ve captured it perfectly!

  50. Jeff Goldbloom wrote on

    Look at firefox.com. That looks nice and clean. Come to mozilla’s site and it’s trying to be hip and trendy and in my honest opinion, looks very tacky and unprofessional. This logo does not look good and will not allow for new users to understand it’s meaning.

    Redesigns are good, this one is not.

    1. Aleksei wrote on

      I would say the logo is OK, though I find the rest of the brand elements busy and unfocused.

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