New Firefox Icon, my opinion

The User Experience Designer Alex Faaborg is taking the community on a ride. The Firefox logo is getting a revamp and Alex Faaborg is posting updates almost every 24 hours. He started with a post about logo's and how they mostly evolve with the product brand. In that post he also explains Firefox 3.5 is a significant release that's worth a revised logo.

There are already several iterations for the new Firefox logo and they are looking better with each iteration. Though this post doesn't handle that.

This post is for giving you my vision on the logo,
but first some background about logos...

Some background

The name of a brand is mostly represented by the logo. So people can better link the logo with a name and vice-versa. There are several ways to achieve that. You can either use the name itself, like you can see in many logo designs.

Or another common way is to use the meaning of the brand name. For example, the Firefox logo has a fox with a tail on fire in it.

The third and last way is to link the philosophy of a brand with the logo. That's also the hardest to do. For example, Windows. The name 'Windows' is chosen because the system could do multitasking and use multiple windows, what wasn't common back then. That idea has become their logo.
Back to the Firefox logo

The Firefox logo can be categorized in the second category. It's uses the meaning of it's name (Firefox) and represent it by a fox with a tail on fire in the icon.

It can also be categorized in the third or final category. I see the Firefox logo as follow. The globe on the icon represent the Internet itself. The Internet is something global (that's why the globe), but it's also something anonymous. Anonymous, because the web does not belong to one person or country, but is for everyone (that's why the globe has generic continents).

My vision on the Firefox logo

One of the aspects planned for change, is integrating the globe with the fox. In the current logo, the fox and the globe look like 2 separate layers that are painted above each other. The integrating will be done by making the tail look more 3D and let it wrap around the globe. You can find more planned changes and there reasoning on the blog of Alex Faaborg. I also agree the globe and the fox should be integrated more.

I also think we can put more of Firefox's philosophy in the logo. Mozilla Firefox wants to promote the open web. In the current logo, you can't find any reference to this mission. For example, there is no interaction between the globe (the internet) and the fox (Firefox). I feel there is an opportunity to improve on that area.

My idea:
As you can see on my mockup, the fox is playing with the globe. It has a connection with the globe (the internet). So the Firefox is online on the internet. The fox is also plopping in the water of the globe. Actually Firefox is playing the internet, hoping to improve and promote it.

Things I'm proud off:
- The rimples are subtle and only visible on high-resolution versions
- The globe and the fox are more integrated into eachother

Things that should be improved
- The arm is to small in proportion to the fox
- This design is based on the current logo, not on the concept renderings