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With a total of 314 votes, I’m excited to announce “Happy and Snappy” as the winner of our recent Creative Collective challenge for Firefox 4.  While there were many great designs to choose from, this was definitely among my personal favorites… and I’m looking forward to wearing it both as a shirt as well as my Persona.

Our winning designer, Koen Hendrix (@koenhendrix), is a web UX designer and developer based in the UK and a longtime fan of Firefox.  He was also among our more prolific artists with four really great design submissions — all rendered in a fun retro inspired style.  I thought it would be interesting to learn a little more about Koen’s background, how he got introduced to Mozilla, and his creative process going into this particular design.  So I asked him a few questions over email, and (with his permission) am sharing the responses below.

Congrats to Koen!  We love this design and hope to see more from you in the near future.

About the designer, Koen Hendrix:

* What was your creative process and inspiration for the various artwork you did for the challenge?  Specifically, the Happy and Snappy artwork that won.

My first thoughts were fairly rudimentary  – I remember reading the brief and thinking “Firefox. Four. Fast. Fresh. Fun – OMG there are so many Fs this’ll be great”.  But after some sketching I realized that simply re-using the F’s wasn’t the right approach, and also something that a lot of other designers were doing. So, I started looking for different ways of expressing the joy of Firefox, and differentiating myself from the other submissions.

I had been exploring retro design elements and came up with the idea that a retro look could help defuse the complex technological associations of a browser. Yes it’s got a new JavaScript engine and HTML5 and all sorts of geeky tech goodness under the hood. But let’s just forget about the tech aspect and make a cheerful, retro re-interpretation of the Firefox brand that will make you smile. From that point I really quickly got the “Happy and Snappy” tagline and the yellow color… and it all just came together from there.  Of the designs I submitted, “Happy and Snappy” was my first idea and also the one I spent the most time on. It’s more polished than the others and I’m definitely proud of it.

* How would you describe your style?  What are your influences?

I wouldn’t say that I’ve got one particular style, and since I’m not a real graphic designer I’m not looking to define my own style.  I like to keep up with and follow what’s hot in the web design world. Currently I’m intrigued by all the ways that people are combining elements from the ‘web 2.0’ look (sleek gradients and reflections) with retro elements (typically limited-palette textured stuff).

Online, I am in love with Veerle’s Inpiration Stream. It’s just so well curated and matches my own interests.  I discover a lot of inspirational posts from various web design blogs by following the Smashing Network feed. Offline, I like museums – we’ve got a couple of great ones in Liverpool and London isn’t far away either.  I also have a particular interest in typography, so I pay close attention to type on posters, covers and so forth.

* How did you originally get interested in design?

I liked to draw when I was a kid, I remember that. I was generally very interested in tech stuff and good at math so I went on to study Computer Science. There I learned that while there was a whole world of protocols and databases underneath computers, there was also a user side to focus on, so I drifted towards UI design, ergonomics, visualizations and industrial design, learning about usability and the history of design. Afterwards I did another degree (in User-System Interaction) where I got to work alongside media designers and psychologists for two years. That was a fantastic experience, broadening my view and expertise from computer-scientist-with-an-interest to full-fledged UX designer.

* What led you to become involved with Mozilla? And how did you find out about the Creative Collective?

I’ve been an avid Firefox user for years and had actually wanted to buy a shirt to support Mozilla for a while. But I just hadn’t seen a design I really liked; just a Firefox logo on blue or black didn’t do it for me (I didn’t even know about the Mozilla Community Store – shame on me). So when the chance came along to design my own, I jumped at it… learning more about the Creative Collective (and the great initiatives from Mozilla Labs) along the way.  I definitely want to keep contributing!

* Anything else you’d like to share with me, or the wider design/Firefox community?

If you love the web, give something back. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Just cast your little vote with some effort and/or your wallet. Have you been using Wikipedia for years now, like me? Are you glad that’s it’s always there for you to consult? Then give something back, go make their articles better, or donate. Relying on Firefox, Firebug or some other plugin every day? Then get involved in keeping it great.  If you care about the web, actively support the things that you think are great and worth preserving.

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.

Earlier this year we opened our design process with a contest to create the official Firefox 3 T-shirt – a challenge that was quickly met with global enthusiasm! We received over 2000 submissions representing countless hours of hard work and creative contributions from a passionate design community, ranging from complete beginners to experienced professionals. The Flickr contest group grew to over 3,500 members and was bustling with activity, collaboration and intense discussion.  Over time it evolved into an impressive pool of talent and artistic expression, all in support of Firefox!  I really wanted to capture this creative energy and help demonstrate the diversity in styles, so I made an image collage stitching together a large sampled set of these great designs.

Our team here at Mozilla tackled the difficult task of selecting the top five, which were then passed on to you, the community, for a final decision. Garnering the overwhelming majority of the votes was the “lineup” design by Tracie Andrews (a.k.a “egirluk”), a talented illustrator and graphic designer from the UK. Tracie was among the contest’s most prolific designers and we’re very excited to have her work featured in the Mozilla Store.  To learn more about Tracie and her creative process, check out her portfolio and John Slater’s post on The Story Behind The Shirt.

Although open to interpretation, the winning design, with iconic symbols of people and a fox, lends itself perfectly to the concept of community – an important part of what Firefox is all about.  It also became a fun source of inspiration for our promotional photo shoot, which involved mimicking the design with our own team and the illustrious Fox himself.  Check out some of our pictures below, as well as this secret footage that was recently discovered.  Special thanks to our amazing in-house photographer Rolo who helped make it happen while battling against unideal conditions, including swift winds and my uncontrollable hair.

This design contest was the first major project that I managed at Mozilla from concept to completion.  I thoroughly enjoyed every step and found it to be a great introduction to our unique community.  Thanks again to everyone for their dedicated support and help in making this effort a success.  Especially those who actively participated in the group and contributed with their designs.

It has definitely been a long and interesting journey leading us to the official, community-based Firefox 3 t-shirt which is now available in the Mozilla Store!

I recently designed a banner and some supplemental graphic art to help promote the Firefox Screencast Contest which launched on May 19th. If you haven’t already heard, the contest is a great opportunity to apply your creative talents towards the SUMO knowledge base by creating videos for the top 100 support articles. This community-powered project already has an extensive library of tutorials and troubleshooting information, a valuable educational tool written by thousands of volunteers in the Mozilla community. But technical concepts can be hard to explain in words and static images alone. Therefore the Screencast Contest aims to visually translate the most popular of these articles through a more powerful and effective medium: Video!

When Seth approached me with this project, he provided a brief background of the contest and a few visual references – leaving much of the creative direction in my hands. I knew through experience that producing a screencast is relatively simple, but also that the process reflects upon the classic art of filmmaking – the ability to visualize and communicate a series of events into a story. This thought conjured up images of vintage film reels, animation frames and motion picture cameras – familiar references to the concept of video which were then used as inspirational art for my designs.

We have a talented pool of freelance designers that work with us on most of our projects, but on occasion I also help respond to various design needs. Visual expression and graphic design are among my many passions, so I really enjoy these design challenges. Its part of what makes my job here so great!

These images were used as promo spots on the main contest website, the prizes page, and the Facebook group. I also wanted to thank Chris Bewick, designer of the exclusive Firefox t-shirt prize used for this contest.