Branding without walls.

An open source approach to design.

Mozilla’s currently in the process of completely revamping their brand.

Why? Not boredom, or the vague urge for a change in aesthetics. With less than 30% of people aware there’s more to Mozilla than just Firefox, this is an opportunity to draw attention to their broader portfolio of projects, and generally change the way people think about the company. Or, as Mozilla’s creative lead Tim Murray puts it:

“We’re modernizing our brand identity so that people may know and understand us better.”

But it is the way Mozilla is approaching the rebrand that is truly interesting.

There will be no curtains leading up to this big brand reveal – everything’s out in the open with their experiment in ‘Open Design’.

“Open design?” you repeat quizzically.

Yeah, open design: Mozilla are taking the principles of open-source development (a key aspect of Firefox) and applying these to its brand redesign.

“We’re updating our brand identity using Mozilla open source principles, and everyone’s invited.”

Cool idea, right? Well, so far it seems less of a collaborative approach to building a shared outcome, and more of a design competition between a handful of agencies.

But opening the designs for comment from the digital community is an interesting approach – and a brave move from Mozilla. Because, let’s be honest, when it comes to logos, the online critics can be pretty brutal (a lesson designers have learned time, and time, and time again).

However, many argue the transparency of the process is genius. It reduces the risk of a nasty shock by giving people time to come to terms with the new logo, and gives the wider audience ample opportunity to shoot down any obvious misfires.

This redesign consists of four stages – creative strategy, concepting, refinement, and guidelines – a process that began in June, and will run through to November. Mozilla has recently released the results of concepting, which you can look at here.

Of the seven concepts submitted by five competing agencies, Mozilla happily claim, “there are no duds in the mix” (eehhh… having trouble getting on board with the ‘Eye of Sauron’), and state:

“The hard part will be deciding among them, and this is a good problem to have.”

So, if you’re a designer considering submitting your own concept, we’re sorry to say that the ship has sailed. But it’s certainly not too late to make your opinion heard.

At this point, Mozilla’s made it clear,

“What we’re seeking is input on work that’s in process. We welcome your feedback in a form that suits you best […] We simply want to incorporate as many perspectives and voices into this open design process as possible.”

So, which one would you choose? If you’d like to let the Mozilla team know which direction they should take the brand, visit the comments section on Mozilla’s recent concept post and let them know what you think.