Mozilla has unveiled a major rebranding designed to represent the organization as it continues to fight for a free and fair web for all over “the next 25 years.”
Maker of the Firefox web browser, Mozilla is an organization whose importance goes far beyond the application that made it famous. Mozilla has been a champion of online privacy and digital rights, offering an important alternative to Google’s web browser monopoly, and Microsoft’s before it.
Mozilla’s rebrand is an effort to help pave the way for the organization to continue its advocacy, while also appealing to new users.
“As our personal relationships with the internet have evolved, so has Mozilla’s, developing a unique ability to meet this moment and help people regain control over their digital lives,” said Mark Surman, president of Mozilla. “Since open-sourcing our browser code over 25 years ago, Mozilla’s mission has been the same – build and support technology in the public interest, and spark more innovation, more competition and more choice online along the way. Even though we’ve been at the forefront of privacy and open source, people weren’t getting the full picture of what we do. We were missing opportunities to connect with both new and existing users. This rebrand isn’t just a facelift — we’re laying the foundation for the next 25 years.”
Mozilla shared background into the thinking behind its new logo:
We teamed up with global branding powerhouse Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR) to revamp our brand and revitalize our intentions across our entire ecosystem. At the heart of this transformation is making sure people know Mozilla for its broader impact, as well as Firefox. Our new brand strategy and expression embody our role as a leader in digital rights and innovation, putting people over profits through privacy-preserving products, open-source developer tools, and community-building efforts.
The Mozilla brand was developed with this in mind, incorporating insights from employees and the wider Mozilla community, involving diverse voices as well as working with specialists to ensure the brand truly represented Mozilla’s values while bringing in fresh, objective perspectives.
The design revamp incorporates symbols and typefaces that are designed to symbolize the various aspects of Mozilla’s mission.
- The flag symbol highlights our activist spirit, signifying a commitment to ‘Reclaim the Internet.’ A symbol of belief, peace, unity, pride, celebration and team spirit—built from the ‘M’ for Mozilla and a pixel that is conveniently displaced to reveal a wink to its iconic Tyrannosaurus rex symbol designed by Shepard Fairey. The flag can transform into a more literal interpretation as its new mascot in ASCII art style, and serve as a rallying cry for our cause.
- The bespoke wordmark is born of its semi-slab innovative typeface with its own custom characters. It complements its symbol and is completely true to Mozilla.
- The colors start with black and white — a no-nonsense, sturdy base, with a wider green palette that is quintessential with nature and nonprofits that make it their mission to better the world, this is a nod to making the internet a better place for all.
- The custom typefaces are bespoke and an evolution of its Mozilla slab serif today. It stands out in a sea of tech sans. The new interpretation is more innovative and built for its tech platforms. The sans brings character to something that was once hard working but generic. These fonts are interchangeable and allow for a greater degree of expression across its brand experience, connecting everything together.
- Our new unified brand voice makes its expertise accessible and culturally relevant, using humor to drive action.
- Icons inspired by the flag symbol connect to the broader identity system. Simplified layouts use a modular system underpinned by a square pixel grid.
“The new brand system, crafted in collaboration with JKR’s U.S. and UK studios, now tells a cohesive story that supports Mozilla’s mission,” said Amy Bebbington, global head of brand at Mozilla. “We intentionally designed a system, aptly named ‘Grassroots to Government,’ that ensures the brand resonates with our breadth of audiences, from builders to advocates, changemakers to activists. It speaks to grassroots coders developing tools to empower users, government officials advocating for better internet safety laws, and everyday consumers looking to reclaim control of their digital lives.”
Why Mozilla Matters
There are few companies whose survival is as important as Mozilla, a fact that has been recently illustrated by Google killing off uBlock Origin.
Google has been working for some time to replace Manifest v2 with Manifest v3 in its Chrome web browser. As a result, some of the most popular and useful extensions, including—unsurprisingly—content blockers like uBlock Origin.
Unfortunately, Google’s decision to end support for Manifest v2 has implications far beyond Chrome. Because many browsers use the same backend engine as Chrome, those browsers are impacted by Google’s decision, unless they take it upon themselves to maintain support for the older protocol themselves—a prohibitively difficult task for many smaller teams.
As we have pointed out at WPN many times, it’s a fools errand to rely on a company that gets the bulk of its money from advertising to also provide a private web browsing experience. Google has tried to spin its decision to move from Manifest v2 to Manifest v3 as a security decision, but it’s more than a little convenient for Google that doing so kills the most effective advertising and content blockers that are currently available.
In this context—where the dominant browser and browser engine is developed by an advertising company with a history of abusing user privacy—there needs to be an alternative that is developed and backed by a privacy-respecting organization.
Hopefully, Mozilla’s rebrand is wildly successful, helping the company better compete with Google and Microsoft, and regain some of the market share it has lost.
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