
Rebuilding a simplified Firefox logo - AaronMT
http://blog.seanmartell.com/2013/06/27/rebuilding-a-simplified-firefox-logo/
======
ChrisNorstrom
Downvote me to hell but I can't stand the new logo. It's the little things,
the designer is on the right track, simplification is the right direction
but...

The new 2013 logo is unbalanced & dull.

1) First it's extremely unbalanced, all the eye popping color, depth, & detail
is in the tail with nearly no highlights on the left side of the logo.

2) The fur on the end of the tail is 3D, slightly wrapping itself around the
globe. Why? Why simplify the whole logo and leave the tail with the same awful
complexities as the previous 09-13 logo? The tails in the 04-05 and 05-09 are
near perfection and more simple. The newer tails add unnecessary detail yet
they were kept.

3) It's inconsistently flat. Usually flat coincides with simple, but the
logo's complex outlines have actually been exaggerated while the coloring has
been flattened and simplified. The fox's head and torso on the other hand were
nicely simplified (aside from the little hairs added all over).

4) It's dull. What was once planet earth is now a dull blue ball with coffee
stains.

5) The gradient of orange to yellow is too hard. The entire fox is orange then
sharply turns to yellow after the tail starts. The gradient change in the
04-05 version is perfect. The new logo's gradient is harsh and too
distracting.

6) Micro-details were added. Why? I thought this was about simplifying? Look
at the fox's fur on it's back. There's little tiny hairs that have been added
that weren't there in the 04-05 and 05-09 version. There's no reason for those
to be there. When the logo is shrunk and viewed at it's normal size they won't
even be visible, why not just remove them altogether. In fact the ears have
added hairs as well.

It's easily salvageable and the designer was on the right track:

Just bright up planet earth, contrast the continents from the ocean more,
remove the 3D-ness of the fox's tail, further simplify or remove the tail's
inner fur spikes, and soften the gradient of orange to yellow that runs across
the fox's body and get rid of those annoying hairs that one can only see when
zoomed in 400%.

~~~
TheBiv
Perspective: This is how the normal person will see what you are hating
[http://rkuykendall.com/uploads/fx-logos-
small.png](http://rkuykendall.com/uploads/fx-logos-small.png)

~~~
scott_s
Interesting - at that scale, the gloss on the globe in the 2009-2013 version
looks unnecessarily distracting to me. The latest one "reads" best to me at
that scale.

~~~
eksith
I was thinking the same thing. But by and large, 2004-2005 was remarkably a
case of "if it ain't broke...". The fox was just the right shade, the globe
was there, but not overwhelming.

Considering this was right before the rise of Web 2.0, we can see the gloss
was appropriate at the time, but it suddenly follows the flashy trend
downhill.

------
archagon
I started reading this article with a burning prejudice against overly
nitpicky designers, but I have to say, each change here makes perfect sense
and contributes to a more cohesive whole. Never thought Firefox of all places
would be a good place to read about design. Great work!

In regards to the flatness and lack of detail that some people are complaining
about: when I look at the Firefox icon in my taskbar, I don't parse it as a
fox and a globe but rather as an abstract red/blue circle. The simplified
design will make this easier to read -- much more in line with, for example,
the Chrome logo.

~~~
bluetidepro
> " _Never thought Firefox of all places would be a good place to read about
> design._ "

Why's that? Firefox has always had incredible design aspects to their
products?

~~~
scott_karana
I don't know if _always_ is quite true, but they've been pretty solid for the
last three years or so, definitely :)

~~~
PommeDeTerre
Many of us long-time Firefox users have actually found the past three years to
be the worst so far, in terms of design.

The rush to copy Chrome in appearance and behavior has essentially ruined what
was a decent experience before. What's worse is that the design changes
haven't actually brought any benefits, either. And to make it even worse,
there has been nothing to suggest that things will actually improve any time
soon.

Firefox's declining market share over this period is very good evidence that
people are not happy with it. It initially became popular because it provided
a better experience than other browsers; now it's declining because it's
providing a worse experience, and the recent changes clearly haven't been
helping the situation.

~~~
isaacaggrey
> Firefox's declining market share over this period is very good evidence

The only evidence we have is that Google's marketing team has been _very_
effective at advertising Chrome. :-P

> Many of us long-time Firefox users have actually found the past three years
> to be the worst so far, in terms of design.

I'm not sure why you think you can speak for many Firefox users.

> rush to copy Chrome in appearance and behavior

I'll quote myself from a different discussion [1]:

Outside of manilla folder-like tabs and a panel menu, Chrome is given far too
much credit in innovating the direction of browser UI. Tabs on top is an
objectively better UI choice [2]. The download manager is an original Firefox
design [3] and almost anything else that other browsers have adopted (tabs on
top, start page tiles, etc) is all from Opera.

> now it's declining because it's providing a worse experience, and the recent
> changes clearly haven't been helping the situation.

FWIW, Firefox has held steady over the past year hovering around 20% according
to Net Applications [4], and they even had a small uptick in the past month.
In any case, I am confident Firefox lost users because of Chrome's superior
performance and snappy behavior, not because of UI changes. I think projects
like MemShrink [5], Project Snappy [6], and the revived Electrolysis [7] will
go a long way towards improving Firefox's performance. Will those changes be
too little too late? Who knows. Will the upcoming Australis design be the last
straw if your theory holds true? That's up for debate.

I've recognized your handle on other Mozilla/Firefox related posts on HN and
your comments seem to be universally negative [8]. Have you had a bad
experience with the community? I understand strong dislike for a company or
product, but it just seems...difficult to hate on such an underdog like
Mozilla. :-P

/says self-declared Mozilla fanboy

[1]:[http://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1fhgak/mozilla_plea...](http://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1fhgak/mozilla_please_stop_copying_chrome/caahuua)

[2]: [https://blog.mozilla.org/faaborg/2010/06/24/why-tabs-are-
on-...](https://blog.mozilla.org/faaborg/2010/06/24/why-tabs-are-on-top-in-
firefox-4/)

[3]: [http://limi.net/articles/safari-
downloads/](http://limi.net/articles/safari-downloads/)

[4]: [http://www.netmarketshare.com/](http://www.netmarketshare.com/)

[5]:
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/MemShrink](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/MemShrink)

[6]:
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/Snappy](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/Snappy)

[7]:
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis)

[8]:
[https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=firefox+P...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=firefox+PommeDeTerre&start=0)

~~~
PommeDeTerre
There is some historical browser usage share data from a variety of sources
at:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Hi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Historical_usage_share)

StatCounter's desktop and mobile stats show a consistent decline from 26.49%
in June 2011 to 16.86% in May 2003.

StatCounter's desktop stats show a peak of 32.21% in November 2009 down to
19.76% last month.

The Clicky stats are similar, showing a peak of 33.43% in December 2009, down
to 21.19% in May 2013.

And then there's W3Counter's data, which shows peaks of 32.3% between December
2009 and March 2010, down to 19.2% in May 2013.

Wikimedia's data, although not as recently updated, shows a peak of 30.96% in
February 2010, down to 19.11% in October 2012.

The numbers you cite are quite different from these other sources, which are
all relatively consistent, which in turn makes me suspicious of yours.

I think we have indeed seen Firefox go from approximately 30% share at the end
of 2009 and beginning of 2010 down to less than 20% today. That's a pretty
significant drop in just 3.5 years.

As for my negatively, like I said, the Mozilla crew has earned it. I know many
others share this opinion, as well. The numbers above support that very
strongly.

We were quite happy with Firefox up until Firefox 4. Before then, the focus
was on usability, and providing a good browser. Since then, however, the
priorities have clearly shifted, and the resulting product has declined in
quality and usability quite severely. It's a bad situation, and I'm not going
to pretend otherwise. Some people speak out, others just move to a different
browser.

~~~
isaacaggrey
> I think we have indeed seen Firefox go from approximately 30% share at the
> end of 2009 and beginning of 2010 down to less than 20% today.

I don't disagree that Firefox lost marketshare over the past 3 years.
Interestingly enough, the peaks you list are nowhere near Firefox 4's release
date (March 2011), while Google's advertising for Chrome began near those
points [1]. Both StatCounter and Net Applications show this trend (decline
after Q4 2009).

Whether or not StatCounter or Net Applications is more accurate is an argument
I don't want to pursue (page views vs unique visitors, country weighting to
remove bias vs no weighting to preserve data integrity, etc.).

> I know many others share this opinion, as well. The numbers above support
> that very strongly.

I'm willing to bet if Firefox continued to look like version 3.6 yet took the
same performance/behavior from every version along the way it would be in the
same position. Chrome has simply been the superior browser to get things done,
but that can actually be questioned now with a more competitive browser
landscape.

> Before then, the focus was on usability, and providing a good browser. Since
> then, however, the priorities have clearly shifted,

How so?

> It's a bad situation, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

Who's pretending? I'm quite aware of Firefox/Mozilla's position as an underdog
(in fact, I'm concerned). I'm just wondering why you feel the need to
reiterate your dislike given that if someone has not been convinced to move
from Firefox to another browser by now, then either they don't know other
options (unlikely) or they clearly still appreciate something about the
Firefox or Mozilla community and ecosystem that goes beyond the growing pains
that pushed you away.

Mozilla did wonders breaking the IE monoculture and they are doing solid work
now keeping the other major players honest, if not competitive by offering a
solid contender now. In the end, I want Mozilla to be successful because I
believe Mozilla matters: [https://brendaneich.com/2013/02/why-mozilla-
matters/](https://brendaneich.com/2013/02/why-mozilla-matters/)

[1]:
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10422101-71.html](http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10422101-71.html)

------
famousactress
I don't care about the new logo, or the old one... I just clicked the comments
link to confirm what's at this point become pretty well documented on HN: _all
articles introducing new graphic designs of any kind will be hated_.

Not that it's not justified, but I'd challenge anyone to pull up an example to
the contrary. I'm sure someone can find one, and it'll probably somehow
involve Stripe :)

~~~
crazygringo
It's funny... I think there might actually be a good reason for this.

In so much of my experience, it often seems like version 1.0 (or sometimes 2.0
or 3.0) is the best version of something. All the original creators are still
on board, the interface is straightforward, the functionality is clear, the
product is good.

But then, by the time you get to 4.0+, the original creators have moved on, a
new team comes in looking to make their mark, and suddenly a graphic overhaul
is introduced, they start focusing on "content" or "exposing features" or
whatnot, the interface loses organization and coherence, and bad decisions
start being made.

I don't know of a name for this phenomenon, but it almost seems to be the rule
rather than the exception. But it may explain why people seem to be so anti-
change -- because, so many times, the change actually is just pointless or
bad.

------
Someone
Interesting that they aim to have a single resolution-independent logo ("This
tied into another goal of having the image hold up with greater clarity at
smaller sizes" _and_ "with high resolution displays in mind"), while
traditionally, advice was to tweak icons to their display size and resolution.
For example,
[https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/ipad/#documentation/...](https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/ipad/#documentation/userexperience/conceptual/applehiguidelines/IconsImages/IconsImages.html)
says "redraw art as you scale down" and "do not use the standard-resolution
32x32 icon as the 16x16@2 icon". Similarly, [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/desktop/aa51...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/desktop/aa511280.aspx) says "Simply scaling down from the
256x256 size does not work" and "As an icon gets smaller, transparency and
some special details found in larger sizes should be sacrificed in order to
simplify and get the point across."

This isn't purely by technological choice ("we want a svg logo"), as one can
somewhat build a svg where the level of detail varies depending on display
size ([http://timkadlec.com/2013/04/media-queries-within-
svg/](http://timkadlec.com/2013/04/media-queries-within-svg/)).

So it's either a deliberate "it's better that way" choice, or a "better one
really good logo than a couple of less good ones", or they weren't aware of
media queries, or they don't think them supported well enough.

~~~
ricardobeat
Clarity at smaller sizes depends on color & contrast, not small details. Of
course they will do manually-optimized 16, 32 and 64px versions.

------
anigbrowl
And in 2-3 years there'll be another post 'explaining' how the 2013 logo was
too dull or the gradients lacked dynamics or something, and there'll be
another logo that's basically the same with marginal changes, because people
basically can't resist the urge to tweak.

I appreciate that people get bored and design sensibilities change. But spare
us the long-winded itemization of why this is 'objectively' better, when it's
obviously a simple matter of taste.

~~~
ricardobeat
Fair point, but it _is_ objectively better at small sizes (see comments
above), a bit similar to the original one.

~~~
anigbrowl
I don't really agree. I liked the second one best, but I presume there was
some good reasons for the last version they adopted as well.

------
simonz05
Somehow I still prefer Jon Hicks original re-brand of the phoenix logo the
best. That is the 2004-2005 version displayed in the article. See [1] for an
earlier evolution write-up of the brand logo.

[http://thinsmek.com/a-history-of-the-firefox-icon-and-
detail...](http://thinsmek.com/a-history-of-the-firefox-icon-and-details-on-
the-3-5-logo/)

------
pertinhower
Am I alone in thinking that the 2005–09 logo is clearly the strongest image?
I'd like to see the results of a poll. Designers can talk their way into all
sorts of things; a bit of objective measurement of opinion would be
interesting.

~~~
SkyMarshal
That was my initial thought too, but ultimately I have no problem with them
simplifying the logo to make it SVG-friendly, even if the first pass results
in an oversimplification. In a few years, the next pass will probably be done
in SVG first and might get a little more detail back.

 _> The first step in the rebuild was to go in and strip out all the detail
that was using blend mode layering such as multiply, screen and overlay –
mostly found in the tail area 1. As stated, a key goal of the redesign was to
make it work flawlessly in SVG as well as open up the possibility to rebuild
all the internal structure using SVG and CSS gradients._

 _> Having reduced the logo down to its shape-tweaked forms 2 and softer
gradients, we continued to remove any detail we thought wasn’t critical to the
overall image. This tied into another goal of having the image hold up with
greater clarity at smaller sizes._

------
kibwen
I wish there was some more contrast on the continents, but otherwise I think
it looks nice (and they finally fixed the arm!!).

However, given that one of the stated reasons for the change is "SVG
compatibility", I'm surprised that there's no link to an SVG version. And the
official Mozilla branding page doesn't seem to be updated yet:

[https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/styleguide/identity/firefox/br...](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/styleguide/identity/firefox/branding/)

------
kepano
This is mostly about the transition to SVG, not really a "brand evolution".
The new logo is fine, not that much better or worse than any of the other
variations shown. I don't get the hoopla.

I like what Wolff Olins did for Firefox OS and would love to see Mozilla take
major new steps in that direction, with more radical changes to the logo
(which frankly has always looked like a shrimp at favicon size):
[http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/mozilla_...](http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/mozilla_to_mobile_oses_fox_you.php)

------
da_n
I have never really liked the Firefox logo much. I guess this is a decent
compromise given what they've got, and looking at an example of what a
completely flat Firefox logo would look like it just doesn't quite work, think
this is a at least a step forward.

[http://www.iconfinder.com/icondetails/85101/513/browser_fire...](http://www.iconfinder.com/icondetails/85101/513/browser_firefox_flat_mozilla_icon)

~~~
keeperofdakeys
Mmm, the logo you linked seems to have lost all meaning concerning the globe.
When I look at it, the blue sphere doesn't seem to fit well. The fox also
seems just a bit too rounded.

------
rkuykendall-com
My browser didn't want to resize the page smaller than 25%, so I made this to
visualize the logos at very small sizes:

[http://rkuykendall.com/uploads/fx-logos-
small.png](http://rkuykendall.com/uploads/fx-logos-small.png)

------
anonymfus
This looks unbalanced. Right side has much more colours than left.

~~~
chiph
Region 2 in the article is the back of the fox -- they removed all the fur,
which I think is an important detail. There's some color variation up by the
shoulder/neck area that sort-of looks like it, but it's too subtle.

Thumbs-up on removing the high gloss, though.

(yeah yeah, everyone's a critic)

------
NanoWar
I hate this current "make it flat" movement. Ok, it's good so smoothen the
logo a bit, the oval light on top wasn't super pretty, but the grade of
details (in the fox!) were just about perfect.

------
mkehrt
Man, I always thought the FF logo was a good example of a complex logo that
worked really well. The new one is a little too simple.

------
malandrew
It lost a lot of depth on the left hand side. Instead of looking like the back
of a fox, it just looks like an amorphous shape with a tail. 2009-2013 was the
best on the left hand side.

------
mehmehshoe
The word simple must be the word for today. From the payment processor to
arguments for and against simple coding..arrrgh. Do you want a simple logo? Do
what USA Today did to their logo. Have a third grader spill blue paint.

~~~
jimmaswell
But spilled paint doesn't have simple enough geometry!

------
zipop
It wasn't a good logo to begin with. Lets start there. It's trying too hard to
be literal and fit into the blue round boundaries of most other browser logos.
And I honestly don't know whether the tail is supposed to be stylized fire or
not. The asymmetry and distracting hi lights bother me too. In order to evolve
and mature a logo it has to be solid to begin with. Otherwise updating it just
makes it fall apart.

------
alanh
I am experiencing extreme design rage that they kept the way the blue globe
shows through in ragged edges of the tail. It’s pointless, distracting, and
violent.

“Violent,” you wonder? “Surely you are insane and hyperbolic.” I am neither.
Look at those spots and tell me they don’t look like a cheese grater. I
wouldn’t touch this icon if it existed in 3D space. Would you?

------
badman_ting
I guess they had it right the first time.

------
ronaldx
I gather this is driven by SVG: an efficient use of a minimal number of bezier
curves (quite literally, _reticulating splines_ ).

It would be a nice project to automatically recreate existing image files as
efficient SVGs.

However, this procedure seems to make things look flat and textureless.

------
webwanderings
I think it would be psychologically better if that Fox were to show his eyes.

~~~
simantel
Here's the fox all on his lonesome, though not exactly in logo form:
[http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/mozilla_...](http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/mozilla_to_mobile_oses_fox_you.php)

~~~
keeperofdakeys
There was also a special fox made by Mozilla Japan a few years back
[http://www.foxkeh.com/downloads/](http://www.foxkeh.com/downloads/)

------
will_brown
Oddly, until reading this article I was always under the impression the
Shepard Fairey created the Firefox logo...something seemed off redesigning the
Firefox logo and not mentioning Shepard, so I looked into it and...

It turns out Shepard Fairey created the red "Mozilla.org logo and mascot"
(see:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_%28mascot%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_%28mascot%29)).

------
inthewind
Never really been a fan of the Firefox logo. Why not go for a revolution? Just
use the Red Panda as inspiration for something very cutsey and recognisable.
Bin the current logo.

I like the idea of the ship's wheel in the navigator logo, and the compass in
Safari. As for the other logos they don't do anything for me (oh alright,
IceWeasel is quite a funny knock off, and Nightly's is boringly okay.)

~~~
acturbo
might as well rename FireFox to RedPanda too ;)

~~~
inthewind
The Firefox name is kind of catchy (and known) so I wouldn't go that far. ;)

I think the name started it started out as Phoenix, then Firebird - which they
couldn't use as it was a database, and then was named Firefox. I quite like
the transition. Not sure if it was Clint Eastwood inspired or not. I like the
way that Firefox is the Red Panda - so it's nice that it kind of has that
evolution. It so happens that the Firefox is rare and is totally cute. There
was an icon floating around on Linux which was based on the panda that I liked
- and the panda has loads of potential for a lovely icon.

------
byandyphillips
"Simplifying a style doesn’t always mean bringing it down to basic geometric
shapes and solid colors."

Cough... cough... iOS7

~~~
lttlrck
And Google, Microsoft, ...

Though really iOS7 is the least flat looking.

------
BaconJuice
That blog layout is gorgeous, anyone know what it is? I'm guessing it a custom
made skin by him.

~~~
acturbo
from the source, looks like WordPress

~~~
mh-
indeed, the WP theme is
[https://github.com/viewportindustries/starkers](https://github.com/viewportindustries/starkers)

can see here: [http://blog.seanmartell.com/wp-
content/themes/simplified/sty...](http://blog.seanmartell.com/wp-
content/themes/simplified/style.css)

------
lucb1e
Oh I thought it was a lazy designer that left out all the details in the
Firefox logo. Never imagined it was actually a new logo. Didn't really notice
it a lot though anyway, not sure you can even call this a new logo.

------
bsimpson
For an article about how it is now SVG-compatible for improved display on
retina-class screens, it sure does look crappy on my Chromebook Pixel.

Would have been nice if they used retina-quality assets in the announcement...

------
sn0v
I remember the hullabaloo when the 'flat' Chrome logo was introduced, but
people have gotten used to it as well. Seems to me like the FF logo will
undergo a similar transition :)

------
pearjuice
I can't believe so much time has gone into iterating a logo which was pretty
acceptable to begin with, when so many other areas need work.

~~~
OrsenPike
I see your point but this is obviously a graphics guy (or girl) and probably
not a programmer to the level that is require for a lot of the work on
Firefox. Now if this new logo were designed by a developer on OdinMonkey I
would say it was time wasted as they could be doing a lot more important thing
but I don't think this is the case :)

------
tbirdz
I wonder if Debian will make a similarly flattened new logo for their
Iceweasel version of Firefox.

------
sunseb
First logo was more punchy/constrasted ! New one is inexpressive.

------
jathu
wtf is up with the whole "flat" trend? first microsoft, then apple and now
firefox. lack of depth does not look "good".

------
OGC
Jerking it, Firefox edition. Nobody cares about the details as 99% of the
users will look at this logo in a 16x16 or 32x32 px version.

Is it a fox hugging a globe? Is the fox red/orange? Yes? Is it somewhat
detailed? Okay. _Good enough_.

------
Dirlewanger
Oh look, it's even more flat!

Just put the gun to its head and pull the trigger. Flat's all the rage man,
why not kill another great logo with it!

~~~
adamman
That is nowhere near flat.

~~~
illicium
It may not be as flat as currently trendy (Microsoft, iOS 7) but it still has
way less contrast than all the previous revisions.

------
brokenparser

        Dear Firefox,
        
        Please don't.
        
        Sincerely,
        the Internet

