

Creative Brief for the new Firefox icon - robin_reala
http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2009/05/15/creative-brief-for-the-new-firefox-icon/

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markessien
I never thought the firefox icon was a particularly good brand. Right now
everyone has gotten used to it, but as a brand symbol, it means nothing unless
you look at it in a large format, which is exactly the opposite of the way
most people use it.

If I look at the icons in my quick start list, far superior to the firefox
icon are: Skype, Utorrent, FileZilla, Winamp, Eclipse, even iTunes.

Firefox looks like an orange circle on a blue circle. It's not a strong visual
identity - it's recognizable now because most people know it, but on its own,
it's poor.

For example, how would you describe it? Internet Explorer is 'The Blue E'.
Firefox is 'The orange circular kind of thing thing with some blue dots in the
middle'. If you say click on the 'Fox wrapped around a planet', your grandma
will not find the icon.

~~~
tspiteri
_If you say click on the 'Fox wrapped around a planet', your grandma will not
find the icon._

How about saying 'Firefox'? It looks like a fox, and its tail looks like fire,
so your grandma should find it.

~~~
markessien
It looks nothing like a fox unless you look quite carefully up to sizes 32x32.

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robin_reala
Alex Faaborg has posted the first draft of the new icon:

[http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2009/05/15/new-firefox-
icon-...](http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2009/05/15/new-firefox-icon-
iteration-1/)

Apparently successive revisions will follow every 24 hours. I like the way
they’re keeping the redesign process in the open!

~~~
robin_reala
Iteration #2: [http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2009/05/15/new-firefox-
icon-...](http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2009/05/15/new-firefox-icon-
iteration-2/)

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wavesplash
Seems like they're missing the forest for the trees. The Firefox logo could
use a re-branding to be more recognizable, not have an animal showing you its
back, and also to overcome negative bias in Asia (Foxes are considered Tricky
- not clever).

~~~
viraptor
Foxes are animal equivalents to robbers or tricksters in almost every children
story I know (in Europe)... I'm not sure, why did you mentioned Asia
specifically?

Every single symbol will have a negative bias for someone... but I doubt some
person would skip firefox just because of the icon :/

~~~
zimbabwe
Perhaps not skip - but it's an abstract and complex image whose only
connection to the Internet is with the old concept of the "worldwide web" -
emphasis more on world than web.

Compare that to Internet Explorer or Opera, who at least provide a memorable
initial. Or Safari, whose symbol of a compass indicates travel in a more
direct manner than Firefox's logo. (Chrome's logo is similarly strange - comes
across as a Pokeball to me.)

