back to article Mozilla's trying on seven hot new spring/summer logo looks

Mozilla's attempt to find a new logo has reached the point at which it is willing to share seven new hot spring/summer looks with the world*. There they are at the top of the story (or here for those of you reading our mobile site or apps) and if you click here we've uploaded a lovely large version so you can really pore over …

  1. Richard 81

    Meh

    These all look really amateur.

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Meh

      Agreed. I'd be shocked if I heard they paid money for any of these. It's not that I don't particularly like the work, it's that they all show a lack of understanding about what a brand logo is supposed to be.

      A logo is not a "picture", it's a visual component that has to be used in a wide situations, from signage to promotional items as well as the more obvious documents, advertising and websites. Some of these would be a total pain in the ass to integrate into any kind of layout (Flik-Flak, #7, is the worst, but "Impossible M" is equally difficult, and the type doesn't fit the graphic properly), never mind the more inventive ways that branding is applied in the real world.

      My vote would be to just adapt the dinosaur-head image that MDN has used for years, and keep the existing "mozilla" type - it's recognisable, distinctive and it can be used widely.

      1. mythicalduck
        Mushroom

        Re: Meh

        I'd be shocked if I heard they paid money for any of these

        Best not look at the BBC's history of logos and payments :)

        Money for nothing, and the glyphs for free

    2. Novex

      Re: Meh

      I agree, in the sense they all look weak. The Firefox and Thunderbird logos still work as far as I'm concerned.

      In the poll, on the first question we need a 'None of the Above' option, and on the second a 'because they'll all naff' option.

  2. imanidiot Silver badge

    Mozilla doesn't need a new logo

    It needs a bloody clue on how it's going to survive the next 5 years. Because I have my doubts the way they are going with Firefox for instance.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mozilla doesn't need a new logo

      Could you be specific, otherwise your post is useless other than maybe as a dog-whistle.

      The problem I see is that as a lumbering dinosaur of a nonprofit, Mozilla can't keep up with the rapid upkeep of the HTML5 spec. This could lead to Google pulling so far ahead that we end up with Chrome only webapps.

      Lazy Devs were already starting to use -WebKit only CSS prefixes so I think the danger is real.

      1. AMBxx Silver badge
        FAIL

        Firefox direction

        Direction is nowhere fast. No noticable end user functionality in the last few years. Just endless discussion about javascript engine. Yes, this stuff is important, but only a few people are interested.

        I first switched to Firefox for tabbed browsing. Stayed with it for the wide range of add-ons.

        All that's stopping me switching to Edge is the absence of Noscript and Ghostery.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Firefox direction

          All that stopped me switching to Edge is Edge

          1. tony2heads

            Re: Firefox direction

            try Vivaldi

            1. Skoorb

              Re: Firefox direction

              Vivaldi is still Chrome's engine underneath (Blink) - you can even use Chrome browser extensions.

              1. Fungus Bob

                Re: Firefox direction

                "Vivaldi is still Chrome's engine underneath (Blink) - you can even use Chrome browser extensions."

                Yes, Blink is *just* an engine which you can put in a whole browser. Just like a small block Chevy is an engine you can put in a full size van with all the options or you can stick it in a motorcycle (see here:

                https://www.bosshoss.com/). Both vehicles provide very different user experiences even though they use the same engine.

                Yes, monoculture sucks but I find Vivaldi to be much nicer than either Google's or Opera's efforts. It's also a lot faster than Opera 12 especially when I have 90Goobtillion tabs open.

          2. Fungus Bob

            Re: Firefox direction

            "All that stopped me switching to Edge is Edge"

            You want to stay well away from the Edge or you might fall over...

      2. imanidiot Silver badge

        Re: Mozilla doesn't need a new logo

        What AMBxx said. Mozillas main product (firefox) seems stuck, going nowhere fast. Bloating from the fast and responsive browser it once was to something as slow and cumbersome as many of the browsers it is trying to compete with. Mozilla seems to be lacking direction (the big danger for open source volunteer organisations it seems) and this is going to break them up if they don't manage to keep enough differentiation to keep their users.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Mozilla doesn't need a new logo

          "Mozilla seems to be lacking direction (the big danger for open source volunteer organisations it seems)"

          Maybe the real problem is that Mozilla seems to be an amalgam of several different things, community, foundation, corporation and goodness knows what else. If it was just one thing perhaps it would have a direction.

      3. Dave K
        FAIL

        Re: Mozilla doesn't need a new logo

        From my perspective, it's because Mozilla have lost their way. They've stopped listening to the users and keep making nonsensical development decisions without any real thought or consideration.

        Australis was and still is a disaster. It was slated from the word go, the "Classic Theme Restorer" addon is one of the most popular on the Mozilla addon site, and the declining market share of Firefox accelerated after it was introduced. Mozilla's response wasn't to acknowledge concerns, or look at tweaking the most heavily criticised aspects, but just to ignore the complains and pretend they didn't exist. Mozilla were right, and anyone who complained was wrong.

        The introduction of Pocket and Hello added pointless bloat to what was originally designed to be a simple, lean and fast browser, and hardly anyone used them as a result. Hello is now in the process of being removed, and Pocket has already been spun out into an addon (albeit one that is bundled still)

        Numerous other customisations (once Firefox's USP) being steadily stripped out and binned. XUL and XPCOM are due to go (with addons becoming lightweight Chrome-like addons instead), heavyweight themes were binned, numerous other customisation options were removed. This didn't do much to improve Firefox's reputation for new users, but it did alienate plenty of Firefox's existing users and 3rd party developers.

        Hence overall, Mozilla have added nothing to Firefox to make it stand out, and have instead spent all their time removing features, alienating their users, and trying to play catch-up to Chrome both in terms of looks and functionality such as multi-threading.

        Hence, will it still be here in 5 years time? Not the way Mozilla are going about things it won't! It'll take a lot more than a wacky change of icon to reverse Mozilla's fortunes.

        1. Updraft102

          Re: Mozilla doesn't need a new logo

          Australis is a good metaphor for all that is wrong with Mozilla. I didn't run it for more than a couple of minutes before I searched for a fix and found Classic Theme Restorer. More and more addons are required to restore things Mozilla removed while they pile in useless crap no one asked for.

          During the early 2000s, Mozilla was the challenger to the corporate goliath of Microsoft; now there is a new corporate goliath in Google, and Mozilla is doing all they can to make sure that everything that differentiates Mozilla from Chrome is removed. So many of the changes have "that's the way Chrome does it" as the only justification... I've lost count of the prefs and features I liked that have been removed with that justification alone. Mozilla has become timid, preferring the status of "also-ran" rather than that of a potential leader, taking comfort in being a follower instead.

          You never would have seen changes checked in during the early 2000s with "that's how Microsoft does it, so it's what users expect" as a justification for a change. Back then, the only discussion was about what the best way of doing things was. Now, when they find they are doing something the best way, or that it doing things the best way is at least a selectable option, Mozilla removes it, citing incompatibility with the way Chrome users expect it to be.

          I don't see the logic there, unless their goal is really to let FF die by attrition. If they keep changing FF to better fit in with the expectations of Chrome users, what is going to lure those users away from Chrome to discover FF? "Come on over to Firefox! It's exactly the same as what you're already using!" Why would anyone go through the effort of downloading and installing a new program just to get what they already have?

  3. Mark Allen

    Is that an Opera logo?

    The first one looks like the Opera "O". So an admission as to where they nicked many of their ideas from.

    Either that or it is an Eye of Sauron admitting a level of spying on users.

    I never understand the need to redesign a logo that everyone recognises with something that just looks like a mess. Maybe it would make more sense to be a violin in the old "Nero fiddles while Rome burns" sense...

    1. BenR

      Eye of Sauron

      Came here to say the same thing.

      Have an upvote instead.

  4. TRT Silver badge

    #2...

    Isn't that London 2012?

    Slutty Lisa Simpson just can't get enough.

  5. Pen-y-gors

    Logos? Pah!

    I wouldn't buy a self-assembly wardrobe from any of them.

  6. Pen-y-gors

    Change them regularly

    It's important to change your logo regularly, so that people get confused.

    Many years ago I worked for a large insurance company who succumbed to the dreaded marketing agency hype and decided to have a new logo. Much money was spent and the entire staff (several thousand) was bussed down to London from all around the country, in the middle of winter snowstorms, so that they could attend the official launch, complete with TV personality.

    Three months later they scrapped it and tried a different logo!

    Three months after that they scrapped THAT and tried yet another.

    Guess what? A few months later they had another change of mind and went to yet another one - strangely similar to the original one. The 'Year of the Four Logos' lived on in company memory.

    Champers all round for all the major London marketing drones!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can't help thinking that their efforts (and money) might be better spent, well, making Firefox less shit? (just to pick an example at random)

    Admittedly, that may be the classic case of 'flogging a dead horse'

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Monster's inc?

    The first one looks more like a vagina with hands & feet to me!

    I'll get my coat ... mines the one with a buzzing noise coming from the inside pocket!

    1. beep54
      Devil

      Re: Monster's inc?

      Slightly related, the one with the hands looks at lot like the 'adults only' warning on Japanese porn.

    2. breakfast Silver badge

      Re: Monster's inc?

      Be careful! I think your pocket might be full of bees.

    3. Groaning Ninny

      Re: Monster's inc?

      I'm seeing a spot of goatse there...

  9. Unep Eurobats

    Mozilla logo, not Firefox

    Go to the Mozilla website and there isn't much evidence of a non-Firefox logo. So the inverted teenage Trump hairstyle may stay, whatever the outcome of this.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's nice to see that they're so community-oriented that they appear to have opened up the logo design contest exclusively to primary school children.

    Even the Mozilla name itself sounds quite amateurish, a total rebranding could make their logo options more appealing.

  11. paulm

    "The Eye": Looks like eye of Sauron. Also seems to imply a big brother style thing. The "All hands" variant reminds me of something very NSFW.

    "The Connector": If I squint I can see a... well, a blur. It just looks like a mess.

    "Open button": Is that a power switch? An elevator? A hobbit hole?

    "Protocol": This one isn't too bad.

    "Wireframe world": Is that a Newton's cradle?

    "The Impossible M": Not as bad as some of the rest, but I'm not sure what it's trying to convey.

    "Flik Flak": It's like someone took Jenga and did something unseemly to it. What were they thinking?

    The only one that looks vaguely professional is Protocol.

    1. tfewster

      And "Moz://a" is techy, flexible and easy to reproduce - Making it memorable and (I predict) self-promoting, so they can save some money on the rebranding.

      1. GrumpenKraut
        Mushroom

        > "Moz://a"

        Cannot say I appreciate that kind of thing.

        Reminds me shop names using capital sigma for 'E'. ---- appreciation ---->

        1. Mark Allen
          Facepalm

          Filename...

          Yeah... Moz://a is also going to work so well as a file or folder name.

    2. caffeine addict

      Yep, if I had to choose one, it would be protocol. It's weirdly outdated, but at least you can see where they were coming from and what it means. It's also the sort of shit I can imaging coming up with, so it's clearly rubbish...

  12. Dwarf

    Priorities

    Who cares what the logo looks like, its about how the browser works that's important.

    I spend about a second with a double-click (or zero if its auto-run or a keyboard shortcut), whereas I probably spend several hours trawling around on the web, so what matters is about its security, functionality, compatibility and speed (in that order)

    I agree with the other comments that the the O logo looks like "lady parts" and can be confused with Opera, but then all the logos look rubbish. Its a bit like going to a coffee shop and worrying about the logo, not the coffee or going to a garage and not caring about the engineering / reliability..

    Spend the budget on something better like improving the speed and security or firing the marketing department.

  13. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Anyone in any organisation proposing a change of logo or some such nonsense should be immediately escorted to the pavement outside by security. A small cardboard box containing any personal possessions from their desk can be sent on later.

  14. Paul Woodhouse

    they should just have the word mozilla in plain black text against a white background in Comic Sans

    1. caffeine addict

      If it's Comic Sans, it has to be magenta on a yellow background.

      1. I am the liquor

        And blinking. They could bring back the <blink> tag if they wanted to.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

  15. Gene Cash Silver badge

    Ah, Mozilla and Firefox. Fighting for dominance on the Linux desktop.

    I can remember when I was proud to use Firefox, instead of embarrassed.

  16. chiller

    They all have a secondary school project feel to them.

    I think JCB for the first one, Sky pause/play button on my HD box for the third.

    The last one made me think of Marble Madness and The Sentinel on the C64.

    All a bit crappy but if your browser is crap then does it really matter?

  17. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

    need an eighth option

    "None of the above and where can I send my optician's bill?"

  18. Teiwaz

    Hmm,

    Protocol is about the only one I 'may' not get sick looking at after ten minutes, 'eye of sauron' ain't either too amateurish or downright ugly (and that's not saying much really) both the latter encapsulate all the rest (what were they thinking? I'd have slapped the designers who presented them).

    What's with the love for the old netscape logo? It looks clumsy and dated (people will be wanting the old ships wheel style back next).

  19. FredBloggs61

    What's so impossible about the "impossible M"?

    1. Teiwaz

      impossible

      Impossible not to think it was designed by someone on hard drugs, the I.Q. of a watercress sandwich or with a serious head injury?

      I think it's meant to be like the impossible box animation on some screensavers and ultimately something m.c. escher-ish.

  20. Trainee grumpy old ****
    Boffin

    The last one....

    Am I the only one who thinks the last one looks a bit like an outline map of Great Britain?

  21. brotherelf

    I like the "what were they smoking" one – I never quite knew how to picture an omnishambles, and now I do! A big unorganized incoherent mess about to fall over any second. Yeah, that'll work.

  22. Runilwzlb

    Pathetic bid for attention

    I think there's some salaried person at Mozilla who has come up with this campaign merely to justify their existence. ie: "Tell me again why we hired you?" Where does the need for a new logo come from? 'We' don't need it...Mozilla doesn't need it. Seems the only person who needs it is somebody there trying to keep their job.

  23. Anonymous Crowbar

    "Why do I suddenly feel like a game of Battlezone?"

    Hey now, a little too far. The remastered version is actually quite playable :P

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