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Those of you who have been around Mozilla for a while might remember the Firefox 3 t-shirt design contest that we held nearly three years ago… it was quite an amazing experience, with so much creative energy pouring in from passionate fans around the world.  Not only did we end up with an awesome t-shirt, but we also had a blast.  So, with Firefox 4 around the corner we simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go for another round.  We’re opening up the process again and asking the community to help us create the official Firefox 4 t-shirt, with a new design challenge hosted on the Creative Collective:

The process is similar to what we’ve done in the past:  After the submission period ends (March 28th), an internal team at Mozilla will review all designs and select the strongest 5 that best respond to the brief.  These will then be re-posted online for your vote — with the final winner chosen by the community and printed as the official Firefox 4 t-shirt – a limited edition item featured in the Mozilla Store and distributed to thousands of contributors.  For more details, design inspiration, rules and resources, please visit the main challenge page.  And if you have any artsy friends or know of anyone that would be interested in joining the fun — please help us spread the word.  Even a simple tweet goes a long way.

As you know, t-shirts are a pretty big deal around here… and so is Firefox 4.  So, needless to say that we’re really excited to see what the community comes up with.  I know it will be nothing short of pure awesome.

* Crossposted from the Mozilla Blog.  Special thanks to Ryan Snyder from webdev, Krupa from QA, Chelsea Novak from the Foundation, Liz Compton from Legal, and John Slater from Marketing for all their help in getting this challenge up and running. *

I’m excited to announce the latest challenge from the Creative Collective: designing the Mozilla 2010 t-shirt! The goal is to create a cool design that captures the unique essence of Mozilla, which would then be printed as the official Mozilla 2010 t-shirt and distributed as an exclusive item to contributors.

Creating a design that represents the multi-faceted nature of Mozilla, its mission and its values is certainly no easy task, but we know that our amazing design community is up to the challenge. You might recall the last time that we gave our t-shirt design process an open-source flavor like this was with the Firefox 3 t-shirt contest, which resulted in thousands of submissions from around the world. Now, for the first time, we’re channeling the talents of our design community towards Mozilla (vs. Firefox), which makes this challenge particularly interesting and even more exciting.

When designing, take inspiration from the broader themes that make Mozilla unique, such as: openness, community, and innovation. You can retain the bold, constructivist graphic style of the original artwork, or take a completely different direction. The possibilities are practically endless and we encourage you to take a more abstract approach, but please keep the Dino logo intact as indicated by our Trademark Policy. For additional details, considerations and requirements make sure to visit the design challenge page.

And, remember that the submission period ends on April 30th 2010. So, get those creative juices flowing and send us your best stuff!

*Crossposted from the Mozilla Blog.*

I’m excited to announce the initial beta release of the Mozilla Creative Collective, the official new home and hub of activity for our visual design community. The goal of the Creative Collective is to use art as a means for spreading Firefox and sharing the Mozilla story in new ways.

Building communities is a big part of what Mozilla is all about, and key to our success as an organization. We have dedicated communities that contribute to nearly every aspect of Mozilla – from software development, to extensions, to localization, to marketing, and more – but an area that’s traditionally lacked an organized community is visual design. And because art is such a powerful form of communication, we’re harnessing that with the Creative Collective.

Mozilla actually has a long history with community design. Successful past projects such as the Firefox 3 t-shirt, Mozilla Mexico logo design contest and Personas are just a sampling of our community’s creative energy – and demonstrate the growing level of interest among people who are eager to contribute.

On the Creative Collective site, artists can create personal profiles, share their work in a public gallery, connect and collaborate with others from around the world, and much more. There’s also a variety of social features, such as a system of achievement badges, to make the experience more fun for everyone.

An important feature that’s not yet available (but will be added soon) is the Design Challenge, which will prompt members to submit design solutions based around a particular theme. Although the feature hasn’t been formally introduced to the site, we’re already reaching out to artists to help support Mozilla Service Week with creative designs that inspire action. If you’re looking for an initial way to get involved, be sure to check that out.

As noted earlier, the site is still in beta so we’re eager to hear your feedback. If you have suggestions on how to improve the site, please don’t hesitate to share them with us. We’ll be making tweaks and adding new features over time, and are counting on the community to help guide the project’s future direction. So, make sure to check back often, or follow our tweets, for updates. Looking forward to seeing you on the Creative Collective!

* Huge thanks to the amazing team that made this all possible: John Slater, Jeff Zeller, Mike Morgan, Ryan Snyder, Craig Cook, Ryan Doherty, Greg Storey, Ethan Marcotte, Stephen Caver, Helenita Johnson, Stephanie Schonauer, Studio Number One, Stephen Donner, Krupa Raj, Raymond Etornam, Shyam Mani, Catherine Brady and Paul Kim.  And everyone else who contributed their feedback during the design process. *

Just yesterday I wrote about some of the ways we’re going to encourage participation within the Creative Collective, and one of them was through the concept of badges (which are digital icons awarded to members for their contributions).  Below are the first set of designs from Airbag Industries, along with a preview of how these achievements would be stamped on your portfolio.  The designs take inspiration from the simplistic feel of various video games, and the color palette of the Creative Collective logo for a striking yet playful result.  We’re really excited about these and think that they’ll be a great way to add more fun (and social capital) to the overall experience.  My personal favorite is “Pixel Charmer”.  What do you think?

(View the full-size version on Flickr.)

The Mozilla Creative Collective is our ongoing initiative to organize and build Mozilla’s visual design community. When the site goes live later this year it will be an active community hub with a network of artists that have come together for a common purpose – to share their talents with the world while helping to promote the Mozilla Project.

John has been covering the design process of the logo, and more recently the first round of website designs (which look amazing by the way).  But I’d like to delve a little deeper and reveal some of the specific features we’ve been cooking up for the site.

Of course, building a successful online community from scratch takes a lot of work and planning.  To attract members and encourage active participation, you need to offer incentives for people to join and unique benefits that they can derive through their membership over time.  In other words, it’s important to offer heaps of social capital. Social capital reflects the value of social networks through things like: new connections; exposure to highly influential people; access to resources, ideas and talent; opportunities to grow your reputation; public displays of your accomplishments; etc.

Taking all of this into consideration, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking of ways members of the Creative Collective can accrue social capital (while also making their experience as fun as possible).  For example, artists will be able to establish their presence through a detailed profile page which will host information about them along with a gallery of their work.  They’ll “follow” and connect with their favorite artists, or download source files of their favorite submissions.  They’ll also be able to take advantage of other social features such as “likes”, commenting, sharing and more.

Another way we’re going to encourage participation is through the concept of badges.  Badges are digital icons that will be awarded to members for different levels of contributions, and will be publicly displayed on their profiles for all to see.  There are many ways you’ll be able to contribute to the Creative Collective….by submitting original designs or remixes, participating in design challenges, providing commentary on other people’s work, and so on.  Each of these are positive actions that deserve recognition, and will be rewarded with a digital badge of honor.  Here is what we have so far (big thanks to the team at Airbag for coming up with these awesome names):

• Hero of the Collective - Winner of 10 design challenges
• Champion of the Collective - Design challenge winner
• Fellow of the Arts – Participated in 25 design challenges
• Minister of Design – Placed in the top 5 of a design challenge
• Pixel Charmer – Work has received 25 likes
• Mix Master D – Remixed 25 designs
• The Producer – Has had a design remixed 10 times
• The Critic – Writes a comment on 25 designs
• Founder – A limited edition badge for those who create an account within the first week of launch

And that’s just a sneak peek.  Stay tuned for more updates on the Mozilla Creative Collective…ways you can participate and build up your social capital.