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*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. *

We recently released 20 new digital gifts into the Facebook ecosystem.  These cute little icons are part of the  Mozilla Firefox collection that launched last year through the Free Gifts application – conceived by Zach Allia and later transitioned over to SGN.  Exchanging digital gifts has long been a popular activity on social networks, and thousands of Firefox gifts have been sent so far.  If you’re interested, the total numbers per icon are reported on a basic stats page, here (Foxkeh is #1, with over 8,000 gifts sent).  Thanks to Shervin Pishevar, Chris Henley, and Gabriel Stock from SGN for their help on this.  Happy gifting!

Firefox 3.5 is finally here! And what better way to celebrate the launch than with the brand new 3.5 t-shirt. We had a lot of fun last year with an open call for designs that led us to the official Firefox 3 shirt.  But this time around, we tried something different.  Inspired by the concept of a tag cloud, we turned to the community for help in coming up with a collection of words that best described Firefox.  We then used these words to create a stylized typographic visualization of what Firefox 3.5 is all about – highlighting some of the key features and goodness that’s baked into the browser.

The final design is not only awesome (and among my favorites), but also a unique addition to our t-shirt archive, which continues to grow as it captures snapshots in Mozilla’s history.  Special thanks to Monique Johnson, for lending her artistic talents to us once again and creating this beautiful word cloud.

The new Firefox 3.5 t-shirts are now available in the Mozilla Stores, professionally modeled and photographed by members of our very own team.  You can also download this design in different sizes as a desktop wallpaper.  Enjoy!

** Paris, Toronto, MV, Tokyo and China offices…looking good!  Silverorange has joined the fun, too.

In last month’s workshop series, Mary and I talked about the power of social media, and how it has helped us drive major initiatives (like Download Day) with incredible reach and impact.  There’s a plethora of social media tools out there, which include social networking sites, social news sites, photo and video sharing sites, blogs, etc.  At Mozilla, we actively use a subset of these tools to stay connected with our community and raise awareness around the projects that we work on.  With the upcoming release of Firefox 3.5, we hope to leverage social media once again to drum up excitement and celebrate the launch.  Here are some ways you can help:

• Update your status (or tweet) during the run up to, and day of, launch.  Promote ongoing campaigns like Fastest Firefox, or 3.5 in 35 days.  Highlight your favorite features and let everyone know when you upgrade.  For Twitter and Identi.ca, please use the hashtag: #fx35
• “Donate” your profile image, or avatar by temporarily replacing it with the Firefox logo.
• Create an event, a download-fest or party in support of the launch.
• Post pictures and videos from related activities using the tags “fx35″ & “Spread Firefox”.
• Blog!  Spread the word, and add some flair to your site with an affiliate button.
• Drive up Firefox related news stories on Digg or Reddit.

If you’re on Facebook, you can also:

• Become a fan of our Page and suggest it to your friends.
• Send a personalized digital gift.  We’ve added 20 new icons to our collection.
• Share articles, photos, and videos on your wall and across the stream.
• Help content become viral with “likes” and comments.  The more you engage, the faster it spreads.

So, regardless of what social media tool you use, there are *lots* of great ways to help generate buzz and get the word out about 3.5.  Remember that even a simple status update has the potential to spark conversations and inspire action.  I also wanted to mention that while we currently have a strong presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Orkut… we recognize the diversity of tools available across the world, and would appreciate your help in identifying the key players in your respective regions by posting them, here. (Thanks!)

Last month I hosted a Creative Workshop to help mobilize the 3.5 community launch team. The slides and video have been archived for your reference.  As you know, creative arts and graphic design are extremely powerful forms of communication.  Often times they are more effective than words alone, and can even break down language barriers to reach a larger audience.

With that in mind, we’re fortunate to have such a passionate community and creative energy around the Firefox brand – which over time, has resulted in some pretty amazing stuff.  From beautifully painted buses in India, to Firefox cookies, cakes, and my personal favorite…a Firefox pillow!  And lets not forget the 2000+ t-shirt design submissions from last year’s contest.

It’s time to tap into your creative skills again, and help promote the launch of 3.5.  A great way to do that is by creating new designs for the Community Store.  Here’s a quick summary of the guidelines to get you started:

• You may choose from a variety of SVG software or raster-based tools – Including Adobe suites and free/open-source alternatives like Inkspace and GIMP.
• Be as creative and abstract as you wish!  Take inspiration from broader concepts like community and open-source, or specific features of Firefox 3.5, like open video, speed, security, and more.
• If using the Firefox logo, please follow the style guidelines and trademark policies.
• Remove any element that you don’t want printed, including the background color layer.
• Save your final file in high resolution transparent PNG format.
• Upload your designs.  Make sure to provide your name for attribution and add descriptive tags.
• Designs are displayed in a public gallery and can be customized on different shirt styles for purchase.

If t-shirts don’t get you excited, feel free to express your creativity in other ways.  But whether it’s stitching, baking, singing, or planting a Firefox topiary (hint)… make sure to show it off by posting to Flickr or Youtube, using the tags “FX35″ & “Spread Firefox”.  We’re looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about design initiatives at Mozilla (like the Creative Collective), or our creative process… be sure to read John’s (and my) blog for the details.  You can also join the design mailing list, or follow our tweets for updates.

As we all know, Facebook has become a powerful marketing tool…with a growing network of active users, global reach, and built-in viral features that offer loads of benefits to brands.  Recognizing the untapped potential within our own fan Page, we’ve recently invested resources towards making it into a more engaging space and a stronger communication channel with the community.  To do this, we went through an in-depth study of the Facebook platform in order to better understand the ingredients of a successful Page.  Then, we developed an optimization plan that covered everything from basic tweaks (like replacing the profile image), to major enhancements (like creating custom tabs and application boxes).  You can read the project wiki for a more detailed breakdown of our efforts and ongoing progress.  We still have a lot of work to do, but the results so far have been positive, with a significant increase in total fans and level of activity on the page.

Highlights from our optimization plan:

• Joining the conversations with more frequent status updates.
• Adding photo albums and videos – the two most viral pieces of content on Facebook.  You’ll find snapshots of various community events, milestones in Mozilla’s history, collections of fan art, and other cool stuff.  The video archive includes classics like “Daredevil” and “Kuru Kuru Don“, along with new favorites.  We’ll be publishing product overviews and demos as well.
• Bulking up the Info Tab with more information about Mozilla and our mission.
• Highlighting the latest news, straight from the Mozilla blog with an RSS feed.
• Designing custom tabs and custom boxes to promote specialized content.  For example, through a custom tab we plan to offer information on how to get involved and contribute to the Mozilla project.
• Refreshing our free digital gifts collection with 20 new icons that you can send to your friends.
• Improving our SEO with a Vanity URL, which is like a domain registration within the Facebook ecosystem.  Instead of a randomly generated URL, you can now find us at www.facebook.com/firefox.
• Driving awareness around our Page and promoting it more actively through various channels like: community marketing calls, launch workshops, the First Run Page, What’s New Page, blogs, etc…
• Creating HTML badges and buttons that you can post on your websites.
• SMS-based fanning.  Text “fan Firefox” to FBOOK (32665) and become a fan of our page instantly.
• Mobile broadcasting and subscriptions to status updates.  Send a text message with the letter “f” to 32665 (FBOOK), and follow our updates on the go.

How you can help:

• Spread the word!  Click on the “suggest to friends” link right below the profile image and let your friends know that they can connect with us on Facebook.
• Help contribute content and energize the page by posting comments, fan photos, and videos.  You can also simply share our posts on your wall, which then spread through the news feeds.
• Provide feedback.  Let us know how we’re doing and ways that we can improve your experience.

It’s a well known fact that the success of Firefox has been driven by the power of our amazing community. In today’s world, social media marketing is really important as it helps to amplify word-of-mouth and spread a message more quickly.  At Mozilla, we use a variety of social media tools to stay connected with our community and find creative ways of getting them involved in everything that we do.  Among our top communication channels is Facebook, and while it’s been a relatively underutilized space for us in the past, we’ve recently taken big steps towards improving our official Fan Page and overall presence on the site.

Our efforts include posting frequent updates, and publishing more photos and videos into the stream.  Photos and videos are actually the most viral pieces of content on Facebook, and the level of response to each post has been quite compelling… with hundreds of comments and thousands of “likes” within a short period of time.  The snapshot below also shows the resulting 32% increase (roughly 116,350) in our fan base in the last few weeks alone — a combination of both organic growth and pre-existing unofficial fan pages who have now merged with ours.  And this is just scratching the surface.  We’ve got a lot more social media goodness cooking up and will be promoting the page more actively going forward.  So, consider this the first of a series of blog posts on our adventures in social media!

* Note: the metrics dashboard takes about 48 hours to refresh, our current total fan base is actually 477K+

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.

Note: I just announced the launch of the Mozilla Community Store on the Mozilla News Blog – crossposted below. Special thanks to the amazing team that helped make this all happen: John Slater, Ryan Doherty, Alex Buchanan, Mike Morgan, Aravind Gottipati, Stephen Donner, Melissa Shapiro, Catherine Brady, Harvey Anderson, Mark Surman, and of course – our partners over at Zazzle.

This morning we announced the launch of the Mozilla Community Store, a new open source approach to our t-shirt creation process that allows anyone to submit their original designs and make them publicly available for purchase.

The Store gallery is comprised entirely of community-generated art from around the world, all of which can be fully customized through Zazzle — a leading on-demand retail platform offering customization tools to help you create products fitted to your unique personal style. The process is pretty straightforward and there are lots of options to choose from, including:

• Over 400 apparel products including basic t-shirts, sweatshirts, and tanks.
• Styles covering women, men, kids, and baby.
• Detailed size charts that range from XS – 6XL.
• A wide variety of shirt colors.
• Scaling and repositioning of the design on the shirt.
• Adding custom text and other images.
• And more!

The Mozilla Community Store was inspired by the Firefox 3 t-shirt design contest, which resulted in a large pool of really impressive designs and a demand to make more of them available for print. We’ve seeded the Store with 60 of the best submissions from the contest, and are excited to see the collection grow.

You can contribute designs at any time through the upload tool on the site. Send us high resolution PNGs or JPGs of your best work, and make sure to enter your name so that we can give you full credit. We encourage you to be creative, but design concepts should generally be based on: Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Camino, Bugzilla, Sunbird or Lightning. Please read the Guidelines and FAQ for all the details.

In support of the launch, Zazzle is offering 20% off purchases through December 25th. Enter the special promo code MOZILLAMERCH at checkout for the discount…happy shopping!