98761 - Mozilla should have a lizzard as its icon

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 73712

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[Guillaume Filion]

Maibe it's just me, but I really don't like the icon that was commited to CVS 
(http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showattachment.cgi?attach_id=36432).

Everywhere we hear about Mozilla we see the lizzard: on the web page, 
the splash screen, slashdot... Gecko is a sort of lizzard, Mozilla is a 
representation of a lizzard. I beleive that not using a lizzard as Mozilla's 
icon is a mistake. 

IIRC, Mosaic used the letter M as its icon and it was not particularly good 
looking. IE is using the letter e to give it a serious look (I guess). Netscape 
Nav. is using the letter N for the same reasons too (I still guess).

But Mozilla isn't about looking serious, it's about geeks/freedom/thinking 
outside the box; putting the letter M as its icon is pretty much copying what 
was done in the past.

IFAIK, not using the Lizzard as an icon was for legal reasons, but as Dawn 
Endico said at 2001-04-26 12:22 in bug 58228:
---
Henri's icon looks wonderful! [...] I'd say polish this up some more and 
work on smaller versions and hopefully by the time that's done, the 
licencing issue will be resolved.
---

I really go 100% with what Dawn said. IMHO, Henri's proposition 
(http://www.pp.htv.fi/hsivone1/moz-icon.html) is the best one received so 
far. So I beleive we should concentrate on tweaking Henri's proposition. 
After all, the Lizzard image is copyrighted Mozilla/Netscape, so it should 
be easier to deal with than if it was copyrighted Micro$oft... 8)

Comment 1

[Guillaume Filion]

Henri Sivonen wrote in bug 58228 at 2001-09-06 03:34:
-----
I used the icon with the dinosaur head for a month and I concluded that it 
looks bad in the context of Dock. OTOH, I've used builds with current icon 
for more than a month now and I think the current icon looks better in the 
Dock than the icon with the dinosaur head.

Let's keep the current icon and forget the dinosaur head icon.

Sure, icon design guides says that you shouldn't use letters in icons, but 
designing an icon that communicates "this is a Web browser" is really 
hard. IE has an 'e'. Netscape has an 'N'. opera has an 'O'. I think it is OK if 
Mozilla has an 'M'. (It's not like using letter is unheard of. The generic OS X 
app icon has an 'A'. BBEdit has a 'B'. XDarwin has an 'X'.)

Mosaic is no longer in use. At least the Mac version of Mosaic 2 didn't 
even use 'M' as the icon. I don't think clashing with Mosaic is an issue. 
(BTW, I don't have a problem with Mozilla looking "serious". You do want 
Mozilla to be taken seriously, right? OTOH, I don't particularly like attempts 
of forcibly trying to look as "thinking outside the box". See also: 
http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/fonts2.htm)

Returning to fixed since Mozilla does have a scalable icon now.
-----

Could you include a screenshot of what the dino icon looks like in the 
Dock or instructions on how to make Mozilla use it? I've never seen the 
icon in the dock, so you may be right and it should not be in the dock at 
all...

But I must say that personally, I find it hard to beleive that there is nothing 
to do to make this icon fit nicely in the dock. I've read your web page (that 
you removed?) and understand that red in a blue dock would bleed or 
distract the eye but it seems to me that this could be corrected.

As for the 'thinking outside the box' issue, my native language is french 
and I've heard this expression a couple of times. I don't know how cliché it 
is... I was just trying to explain the feeling that I have about Mozilla that it is 
about geeks and not blue and gray businesses. But, as you can guess, 
most of my english vocabulary is technical oriented, and not felling 
oriented... 8)

My main argument is that I've always associated Mozilla with their 
lizzard/dino; and that changing its icon for a blue and gray M is somewhat 
dull. I have the impression that most comments in bug 58228 were 
favorable to your icon rather than the blue M. 

Comment 2

[Adam Masri]

I think the "m" is a nice 1.0 icon. It shows that we have a scalable icon for OS
X (which is a minority OS for now), but also shows that we're spending the
majority of our time on more important issues (like making sure Moz doesn't crash).

This will be a nice thing to revisit in the 2.0 timeframe. Most apps have fairly
simple icons to get started, and they gain polish after the initial release of
the software. I'm sure Moz will be the same.

I hope people who are interested in this bug spend more of their time with bug
88393. Personally, I'd rather see OS X scalable document icons, than another
reworked app icon.

- Adam

Comment 3

[Greg K.]

I'm starting an effort to formalize an effort to revise the parts of Mozilla's
appearance outside themes, such as the icon suite, the installer, the splash
screen, and the Profile Manager dialog.

I've started a web page with some initial ideas and bug links at
[http://greg.tcp.com/mozilla/ui/Outside/introduction.html]. I welcome any and
all comments on it.

Comment 4

[Blake Ross]

.

Comment 5

[Bill McGonigle (not currently reading bugmail; please contact directly)]

>Sure, icon design guides says that you shouldn't use letters in icons, but
>designing an icon that communicates "this is a Web browser" is really 
>hard. IE has an 'e'. Netscape has an 'N'. opera has an 'O'. I think it is OK if 
>Mozilla has an 'M'. (It's not like using letter is unheard of. The generic OS X 
>app icon has an 'A'. BBEdit has a 'B'. XDarwin has an 'X'.)

If all anyone used was web browsers, that would be fine. But maybe today I'm
using Mozilla, Mail, Matlab, Money, Mathmatica, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and
Microsoft(.+)?   It's not a scalable behavior.  That's why icon design says
don't do it.  Some of our friends have jumped off the bridge.

counter-example: OmniWeb uses an Earth with OMNI superimpose - it help you say
"omni-web".  

Mozilla is much more than a web browser.  You can't get Web and Mail and News
and Chat and Compose and Address Book into an icon, so you shouldn't try.  You
just have to help the user say, "Mozilla!".

RRrrrrogggggh! 

Comment 6

[Jason Kersey]

Lumping together time!

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 73712 ***

Comment 7

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

marking verified as a duplicate.

if you decide to reopen this bug, please clarify why.

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