Undertaking a rebranding, Firefox solicits community input – Info PR

Firefox‘s parent company Mozilla wants to rebrand its iconic browser—and
it’s asking users to point the way.

The internet tools company started as an open-source, collaborative project
to make the internet a better place for everyone. As the internet evolves,
the organization has increased its offerings and now plans to offer a range
of web browsers and apps that make users safer, more efficient and happier
overall.

Now it says these new organization goals require a bold new face for the
company.

It wrote
in a blog post:

As an icon, that fast fox with a flaming tail doesn’t offer enough design
tools to represent this entire product family. Recoloring that logo or
dissecting the fox could only take us so far. We needed to start from a new
place.

A team made up of product and brand designers at Mozilla has begun
imagining a new system to embrace all of the Firefox products in the
pipeline and those still in the minds of our Emerging Technologies group.
Working across traditional silos, we’re designing a system that can guide
people smoothly from our marketing to our in-product experiences.

The company offered two sets of designs, calling them separate “systems.”
It then solicited user feedback on the potential offerings.

TechCrunch reported:

The whole thing might sound a bit up-in-the-air right now, and that’s
mostly intentional — it’s still pretty early days in the process. But
eventually, Firefox will be getting a new logo; or, more accurately, new
logos.

The work was presented in two potential “systems,” each composed of one
“Masterbrand” logo and 11 auxiliary logos. The masterbrand would be the
primary one used for representing the brand as a whole, while those beneath
it could each represent an individual product.

In asking for feedback, the Firefox team asked for users to share their
thoughts in comments on the blog post announcing the change.

It wrote:

For those who recall the Open Design process we used to craft our Mozilla
brand identity, our approach here will feel familiar:

• We are not crowdsourcing the answer.
• There’ll be no voting.
• No one is being asked to design anything for free.

Living by our open-source values of transparency and participation, we’re
reaching out to our community to learn what people think.

On social media, users have remarked that some designs look similar to
those of other well-known brands.

When I first saw this proposed new Firefox logo I thought immediately of GitLab. pic.twitter.com/R6pCCemArm

— Christie Koehler (@christi3k) July 30, 2018

quick, which is the new Firefox logo and which the Gitlab logo (via @nilium) pic.twitter.com/RRb7tVlEjG

— Andre Weissflog (@FlohOfWoe) July 31, 2018

Hey @mozilla. One of the logos you are giving as a possibility as the next logo for Firefox, looks similar to the logo of a dutch festival. Namely that of @Hongerige_Wolf.

— Simon Klein (@simonklein12) July 31, 2018

Some question why Firefox needs a new logo:

both are looking great but the new one looks like the @gitlab logo. also I never had the feeling @firefox needs a new logo. Why change if something is really good and unique?

— Jan Wagner (@janwagnerdesign) July 31, 2018

Others slam the new designs:

Horrible. What happened to designers’ creativity and imagination?
—
Firefox is getting a new logo (or 10) https://t.co/cIbTCszIj8
cc @eli_schiff pic.twitter.com/HzRfUYYmac

— Dan Masters (@OhMDee) July 31, 2018

Still others question why a redesign is necessary:

both are looking great but the new one looks like the @gitlab logo. also I never had the feeling @firefox needs a new logo. Why change if something is really good and unique?

— Jan Wagner (@janwagnerdesign) July 31, 2018

I don’t know why Mozilla keeps getting possessed by redesign mania like all the big megacorps do, their previous logo was perfectly fine and so is the current iconhttps://t.co/Zs8EF5VD1f

— Katelyn Gadd (@antumbral) July 31, 2018

A good logo does not need to be updated every 4 years. A good logo should be able to last for decades.

Whatever problems the Firefox brand is having, yet another logo change isn’t going to fix them. https://t.co/0VuKp3fNz4 pic.twitter.com/sQ7enakM52

— Zero101 (@Zero101) July 30, 2018

I really like the current logo. I honestly don’t like any of the new ideas. If you make new apps and stuff I wouldn’t mind you using those for them, but keep the quantum logo the same.

— _SlLENT_ (@anthony_s45) July 30, 2018

What do you think of the redesign, PR Daily readers?

(Image via)