Mozilla Is Changing Its Look -- and Asking the Internet For Feedback (arstechnica.com)

Megan Geuss, writing for ArsTechnica: Mozilla is trying a rebranding. Back in June, the browser developer announced that it would freshen up its logo and enlist the Internet's help in reaching a final decision. The company hired British design company Johnson Banks to come up with seven new "concepts" to illustrate the company's work. The logos rely on vibrant colors, and several of them recall '80s and '90s style. In pure, nearly-unintelligible marketing speak, Mozilla writes that each new design reflects a story about the company. "From paying homage to our paleotechnic origins to rendering us as part of an ever-expanding digital ecosystem, from highlighting our global community ethos to giving us a lift from the quotidian elevator open button, the concepts express ideas about Mozilla in clever and unexpected ways," Mozilla's Creative Director Tim Murray writes in a blog post. Mozilla is soliciting comment and criticism on the seven new designs for the next two weeks, but this is no Boaty McBoatface situation. Mozilla is clear that it's not crowdsourcing a design, asking anyone to work on spec, or holding a vote over which logo the Internet prefers. It's just asking for comments.

Comments

Only one of these is even intelligible.

[aussersterne]

Way to hide your brand effectively, Mozilla!

Go with the blue one that actually says "Mozilla" somewhere in a way that most people will be able to recognize.

What they need to do

[Chas]

1: Put off branding until their have their actual products well defined.
2: Stop shoving their nose so far up Google's nether-sphicter. They want their OWN products, not Google also-rans.
3: Dump the fucking SJW culture. It's toxic and it's negatively impacting your products by making your development every bit as psychotic and MPD as it is.
4: Hire someone who ACTUALLY knows something about branding. Whoever's fourth cousin came up with the shit you have there needs to never be allowed near anything even RESEMBLING product branding ever again...

They shouldn't change much, just iterate.

[Qbertino]

Disclaimer: I've got a design diploma (with accolades).

The letter-logo is just fine. They should just iterate their branding a little.

Here are my quick points for the website (German layout version) alone (a new style-tile incorporating these would also be a neat base for a brand overhaul) ... The current englisch version looks boooooring btw. - it's an example of a bad iteration. Just current trendy stuff quickly ripped and remixed without a clear concept, once again half finished. ... Why don't these people just iterate an ok design to make it perfect? Why always a complete overhaul? This is non-sense.

My list:
- Letter Logo off to the side a bit, more breathing room (hero image/video backdrop maybe?)
- Letter Logo bolder (is there an extrabold version of the font? They should move to that.)
- less clutter on the screen
- limit the palette and have it follow color theory (looks like an unfinished MS Metro rippoff - not nice)
- one radius for rounded corners and not 5 or so that I'm seeing.
- Justify left, better images, perhaps some hippster hero images (yes I know, we have enough of those already, but well done they *do* work ... get an expert on this)
- 2 to 3 font sizes, not the 6 or 7 I'm seeing (bad layout design!! Together with the various radi on rounded corners the layout is a mess - a little tweaking alone would be a huge improvement)
- Flowtext font thinner.
- Flowtext fontsize smaller
- Double your whitespace. No, really, double your whitespace.
- layout backdrop coloring is so 2010 - should get a redo, limit colorset or remove it all-together and stick to base-color-palette
- We'res the Firefox Ad or the Moz equivalent? ... Mozilla needs a presentation video of its own. Hero size, professionally done. People want Moooovieezzz! nowadays.
- Nice to have: They should check with some world class webdesigners and see if they can remove or limit the "bootstrappiness" of the entire layout. People are bored of that. Perhaps limiting the use of Icons would already help a bit. Fontawesome and Co. make sense, but they're often overused and out of place. Like postmodern architecture with no sense or meaning... Maybe more to the polymer icons - those are hip, classic and work well with fresh minimalistic designs.

My 2 designer cents.