8 ms·
Only foxes chasing their tails look like Firefox. Everything which is not recognizably a circular fox-thing is something else. Hypothesis: marketing people ar
by dsr_ 8y ago
Only foxes chasing their tails look like Firefox.
Everything which is not recognizably a circular fox-thing is something else.
Hypothesis: marketing people are afraid to continue a brand identity that can go on for decades, because that kind of success means that they don't have a redesign project every three years.
AT&T has been a variation on the Death Star since 1984.
IBM has been horizontally striped initials since 1972.
NBC is a peacock.
McDonald's is golden arches.
Firefox should be a flaming fox chasing its tail.
- okonomiyaki3000 8y agoWhy is it a fox at all? Shouldn't it be a lesser panda?
- magicbuzz 8y agoIt should be a pandicorn.
- mongol 8y agoOriginally it was a bird; Firebird. But as there already existed a software product with that name, after some time it was changed. Probably fox was the next best animal to go with fire.
- Fnoord 8y agoBefore it was called Firebird, it was called Phoenix (I don't remember the related icons though) [1]. The name's also referenced in about:mozilla [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox#Phoenix_0.1_to_Firebird_0.7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox#Phoenix_0.1...
- ChoGGi 8y agoPhoenix used a mozilly icon [1] for the file image and a Phoenix [2] for the about image. [1] https://imgur.com/223ev57 https://imgur.com/223ev57 [2] https://imgur.com/OiAwuvB https://imgur.com/OiAwuvB
- GuiA 8y agoWe are in a design bubble (we have been for a few years now). There are way more designers than there is meaningful design work to do, and they need to justify their existence and paycheck. Hence all your favorite companies doing complete, yet more often than not misguided, redesigns every other year. (I am currently employed as a designer)
- losteric 8y agoSome bad managers outright encourage unnecessary redesigns. It's a lot easier and often cheaper to change the product's skin than lead a dysfunctional dev team through fixing crippling tech debt or adding meaningful new features.
- JumpCrisscross 8y agoAs a former Mozilla donor, I think this blog post communicates “we have more money than we know what to do with.”
- dralley 8y agoDonations to Mozilla don't (probably can't, legally) go to Firefox development. Mozilla Foundation is a charity, Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit enterprise. Money can flow from the Corp to the Foundation but not in reverse.
- virtualized 8y agoSo if you give money to the Foundation, the Corporation has to give less to the Foundation to keep it funded. You could as well have given money directly to the Corporation.
- Fnoord 8y agoDepends on if the Foundation is tax deductible (501c in USA?).
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
- combatentropy 8y agoChanging a famous logo is almost always a bad idea. The reputation of a brand is inextricably tied to the logo, for some reason in the buyer's mind. If you change it, the feelings have to start from scratch. It doesn't matter if the font is outdated. Think if Coca-Cola changed its logo, or the New York Times, or Pininfarina. Okay, that last one was for me. I don't expect most people to know Pininfarina.
- profalseidol 8y agoWorked for Adidas. Toyota too?
- bigtones 8y agoThey design Ferrari's and put a big badge on the side - lot of Ferrari fans out there :-)
- toyg 8y agoDesigned, recent Ferraris are designed in-house.
- com2kid 8y ago> Think if Coca-Cola changed its logo Semi-related, Pepsi has made major changes to their logo multiple times, https://www.logaster.com/blog/pepsi-logo/ https://www.logaster.com/blog/pepsi-logo/ Coca-Cola's changes have been less dramatic, the font has mostly stayed the same.
- nojvek 8y agoThey have an opportunity to being a bunch of really cute animals if they want a suite of logos. A big part of why I was attracted to Firefox when I was young is I had a brand association in my mind “it a fiery-fox, the fastest browser on the planet” (I guess until chrome came along). With quantum it feels fast and lightweight again. Same with thunderbird mail client. I iconic logo and a brand that would make an imprint. I guess I always had a thing for animals. That’s what Ubuntu was my favorite distro. The names - Breezy Badger, Warty Warthog e.t.c Animals evoke an emotion, they represent something.
- galago 8y agoI've noticed that Pepsi has gone from the asymmetrical smiley face back to the original logo on some products. Changing the logo probably just causes confusion when the identification process is almost subconscious.
- sdinsn 8y agoBut what you are missing is, before 1984, AT&T's logo was different. They re-did their branding in 1984. So what's to say that this isn't Mozilla's opportunity to rebrand Firefox? Also, Firefox's logo was a Phoenix from 2002 - 2004, did you know that?
- Avshalom 8y ago>>before 1984, AT&T's logo 84 was shortly after AT&T was forcibly broken up and essentially became a different company. >>Also, Firefox's logo was a Phoenix from 2002 - 2004 yeah, when it was firebird
- jkaplowitz 8y agoIt was never Firebird - that's a database product - but indeed it was Phoenix.
- Avshalom 8y agoI messed up the time line a little: they were phoenix from 02-03 and firebird from 03-04. I thought firebird was longer lived than that.
- sgentle 8y agoI'm afraid you're mistaken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox#Naming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox#Naming
- jkaplowitz 8y agoThanks for the correction. It was renamed away because of the database product, at least.
- sdinsn 8y ago> yeah, when it was firebird Yeah, so they rebranded. That's what I'm saying.
- 2bitencryption 8y agoagreed. modernize it all you want, change the colors, make it "flat", make it "metro", make it "material", I don't care. as long as it's a fox chasing its tail. That IS Firefox.
- Humphrey 8y agoYeah, perhaps they just need to swap out the globe for new objects?
- nojvek 8y agoWell as long as it has a fox and some form of firey colors, going around the globe , it’s easy to know that it’s firefox. But I also know after working with a number of designers, that doing re-branding of a major company is kind of a hallmark event in their careers, and this is the reason we have an evolution of brands. I do hope they stick to the silhouette though. Apple is still very recognizable after a number of logo changes. It’s still an Apple. Firefox being that circle makes no sense.
- baddox 8y agoFascinating that you describe the logo as a fox chasing its tail. I’ve always thought of it as a fox snuggling up around a blue sphere (which I always interpreted as Earth or a globe).
- jchw 8y agoI mean, they gave a justification: they wanted to create a design system so that their different offerings, like Firefox Focus and apparently other things, can have their own consistent icons. Also, I don't see anyone suggesting it shouldn't resemble a fox. The new icons don't look hugely difficult to recognize and it's mostly an incremental change imo
- solresident 8y agocircular referencing is freak symbolism; I don't know why this would be a good logo for any brand.
- seba_dos1 8y agoI've never read Firefox's logo as "chasing own tail". I see it rather as "covering the whole planet".
- nkkollaw 8y agoI definitely agree with not changing recognizable brands, but I wonder how much the fact that those companies have their logo printed on products, lots of stationary, buildings, etc. influenced their decision. Compared to let's say IBM-who has their logo printed on millions of computers-Firefox being a digital product might make it easier to change the logo.
- some_account 8y agoI very much agree. Marketing people will always want to design fresh things because that's what they love to do. Once their product dies, they move on to something else. Marketing people also believe that you can sell anything with a fresh coat of paint. They are trained to sell. I think the new icons are awful. You don't even see it's Firefox anymore. God I dislike marketing people so much. :(
- arthurfm 8y ago> You don't even see it's Firefox anymore Are Mozilla's designers simply following the 'debranding' or 'decorporatizing' trend? [1] [2] [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-age-of-the-wordless-logo/499166/?single_page=true https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-age... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17649985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17649985
- anonymousCar 8y agoOpened that Atlantic article and it prompted my phone for camera a d microphone permissions.
- dosy 8y agoThis often works out poorly. Tide lost market share / suffered pushback when it changed it's branding / colors even a little bit. https://hbr.org/2017/01/customer-loyalty-is-overrated https://hbr.org/2017/01/customer-loyalty-is-overrated
- derefr 8y agoThe new icons aren’t intended for Firefox itself; they’re intended for projects like Quantum, or developer tools, or other parts of the FF ecosystem that should look “Firefox-y.”
- deltron3030 8y agoWhat happend is that web design got more professional compared to times when FF started out as a brand, and they want to appeal to web designers (and graphic designers entering the field) and the overall design community, which has a bias towards modern minimal designs, where Firefox doesn't really fit in. Their Mozilla rebrand was fresh. It could be a good idea to start a new brand, and develop the name and shapes together, without the limitations of the existing Firefox brand. With all the design talent surrounding them, they could come up with something stunning.
- DonHopkins 8y agoThe Sun Microsystem Logo uses the same rotational symmetry group as the swastika, but spells out the name of the company.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoIIRC it was designed by a relative amateur at design, a CS professor at Stanford.
- nine_k 8y agoChanging a good and established logo to an even better, universally loved logo would be great. So far I don't see anything which is better that the current logo, though. Those might be fine logos for other projects, but none of the variants offered does a better job of saying "Firefox the browser" than what we have now. Well, please keep iterating; finding a great logo takes creating a huge lot of variants that don't make it, and a lot of time.
- signal11 8y agoAs others have noted, it’s more of a fox wrapped around a globe — the icon made at a time when the competition (IE) had a circular icon which was an “e” with a ring around it. I did think it harked back well to the old Gecko icon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko_(software)
- beenBoutIT 8y agoThe big idea here is that Firefox is made by and for individuals who don't appreciate good design.