Mozilla Firefox: Users and Branding, part 1

Anyone who’s experienced the hopeless frustration of Internet Explorer shutting down due to errors knows that feeling a sense of closeness to one’s browser can be very important – especially if much of your work is online.

Luckily, you have a friend/colleague/relative who has introduced you to Firefox Mozilla and you’re now browsing happily along.

Mozilla is an open source software project that began in 1998. Open source means that developers around the globe can access the software code adding all sorts of wonderful things to make the program the best it can possible be.

Though and open source software, Mozilla Corporation has very strict guidelines when it comes to logo usage. The website has a very clear and effective guide for using the logo, including typography, colour palette, spacing along with a section that shows various improper usages.

Given that the company is founded on openness, it is still very important to remain strict about branding guidelines so that the message that Mozilla wants to send is clearly attributed to the company. According to Firefox’s Wikipedia page, in 2006, former Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker expressed concern that users should get a consistent experience when they used “Firefox.” That concern that speaks to a strong brand message.

From Mozilla’s about page:

The common thread that runs throughout Mozilla is our belief that, as the most significant social and technological development of our time, the Internet is a public resource that must remain open and accessible to all.

So though their logo is highly protected, it only makes sense that users and developers of Firefox would have, at the least, a say in the branding direction of the software and any of its offshoots. We’ll explore that concept in Part 2 of Mozilla Firefox: Users and Branding