Thinking about Refreshing the Firefox Icon

[prius04]

Out of curiosity, is the texture on the globe meant to represent anything?...

Not sure about the texture but, throwing in my 2 cents, I'd say it wouldn't be a bad thing to lose the globe completely. If you compare the other icons in this thread and the likes of Opera (which basically is nothing more than a red "O"), they have one thing in common; simplicity. The Fx icon, with the globe, is just too "busy" for my taste.

[Stifu]

I don't like the fact the fur is too detailed... Gotta keeping it nice and simple.

[dao-g]

It's actually so detailed that the details should fade away when the icon is scaled down. That's partly why I think this is better than the 2008 rendering.

[patrickjdempsey]

I agree with El Pino... I think at this point, maybe what needs to be done is a model... I don't mean a complicated 3D computer model, but a simple model of clay. Look at the clay model and think about what happens in real space.

In general terms... the texture of the fox is good, but loosing the dynamic hard edged areas makes it seem too "soft". I do like the basic direction of the tail, although at this point I don't think it's quite right.... Getting that detail right is going to take some work, as if it is done wrong it will look like a bad hotrod paintjob as mentioned.

I think one way to look at this process might be to actually start with the small icons. If you get the small icons looking right... just different enough to look "new" and just the same enough to maintain product identity then you have a better concrete direction. I think at this point the new renders look like they will basically look the same when scaled down, which really defeats the whole purpose doesn't it? So if you start at 16x16 and make some interesting changes on a pixel by pixel level, then you can blow it up to full size and do really aggressive and fun things based on those pixel by pixel changes.

[faaborg]

Iteration 2



The icon is being rendered by Anthony Piraino at the Iconfactory. The design is based on a conceptual sketch by Jon Hicks, as well as a few rendered aspects (nose, parts of the planet).

[patrickjdempsey]

In general, very nice. I really love the way the tail wraps around the globe. A few things... the flames are starting to read more like fish tail than flames, and wouldn't a nice shiny globe like that have shadows and reflections? In terms of making it look more like flames, it might require "licks" of flames that are separated from the tail or maybe it's the combination of triangular hair with webbed flames that is making me think "merfox" instead of "foxfire". What would happen if he dropped the webs altogether and just went with more wavy "hairs" like the ones at the top left of the tail? As far as the reflections go... that's more of a polish issue I know. In addition, the connection of the arm to the body needs some work... actually that whole region below the tufts of hair is a little awkward. He appears to not have a neck or shoulders. If I can think of a solution, I'll sketch it and send it along.

[faaborg]

>webbed flames that is making me think "merfox"

haha, yeah we are going to revise that part

[mööp]

The top part of the old Icon + the flames of the new one = perfect

[Soothsayer]

Out of interest will the Minefield icon be getting an update as well?

The drafts of the Firefox icon look quite nice, but I have no strong feelings one way or another because I never see this icon as I always run the trunk build.

[faaborg]

Out of interest will the Minefield icon be getting an update as well?

The drafts of the Firefox icon look quite nice, but I have no strong feelings one way or another because I never see this icon as I always run the trunk build.

Completely independent of this update we had the design firm Sofa re-imagine the nightly and branch build icons. Sofa is awesome and they've done some great work for Firefox 3.5 as well (http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2008/12/16/new-os-x-icons-made-by-sofa/). We'll likely be checking in the new trunk build icons the day after 3.5 launches as the very initial visual identity of Namoroka. But at the moment all of our attention is focused on getting 3.5 shipped.

[drone27of1]

May I know why the "earth" is not continentally correct?

[sheehan]

May I know why the "earth" is not continentally correct?

It's on the Faaborg blog, the big picture that shows the evolution of the Firefox icon. The gist is that they don't want to show any geographic preference (and you can't really show all the continents in a 2D globe.

http://people.mozilla.com/~faaborg/file ... _large.png

[patrickjdempsey]

I DO like that the new globe has an arctic ice cap.

[faaborg]

The designer Stephen Horlander recently created a concept rendering of an updated Firefox icon. Stephen has been a long time member of the Mozilla community and has contributed his design talent to the Firefox 1 theme, the ubiquitous Web Feed icon, and the Firefox 3 OS X theme.

Similar to the ongoing iterations, the design is partially based on a conceptual sketch by Jon Hicks. Here is his description of the conceptual rendering:

"I think fur texture is an important thing to have since the two best ways I see to freshen the icon (without losing the essence of it) are dimension and texture. I guess what I had in mind was less overall pseudo realistic fur texture and more selective enhancement. It's hard to verbalize so I worked up what I had in mind. Basically select patches of sharp, long, subtle (maybe too subtle?) fur. Some on the tufts on his face, some around the arm area, some on the upper and lower half of where his body curves. Much like in Jon's original concepts."

There are definitely some aspects of this conceptual design that I think we will want to leverage in the updated icon for Firefox 3.5. As always comments and feedback are welcome and stay tuned for regular updates throughout the week.

[Bluefang]

I definitely like this latest version much more than the previous ones. I like the more angular design and richer colors.