Several (Small) Changes to the Firefox Icon in RC3


We are now preparing builds of a third release candidate of Firefox 3.5 which should be available shortly. RC3 is being created to fix a few important issues, but it will also include several small changes to the new Firefox icon.

New 16×16 Version (All Platforms, but primarily Linux and Windows)

Based on the feedback coming in to the previous post about the new Firefox icon, we’ve gone through several quick iterations on the 16×16 version. Here is the set of iterations which appear in chronological order from left to right. The icon now packaged in RC3 appears on the far right:

New16X16

Dock Shadow Cropping (OS X)

We moved the position of the 128×128 icon on OS X down slightly so that the automatically generated shadow created by the dock is not as cropped off. This is technically an OS X bug, but the problem isn’t as obvious now (and we are in alignment with other OS X icons):

Dockshadow

Higher DPI Shadow Effect for 512×512 (OS X)

This was something that we missed but someone in the community caught: the previous shadow on the highest resolution OS X icon wasn’t being rendered by Illustrator at a high enough DPI:

Shadowdpi

As always feedback is welcome in the comments below.

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June 23rd, 2009
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Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Victor
Posted on:
June 23, 2009 at 6:57 pm

I love the new 16×16px icon for Windows and Linux! In Linux, the titlebar icon has been blurry for far too long.

However, are there any plans to create 22×22px and 24×24 px icons for Linux? The most common way to start Firefox in say, Ubuntu, is through the panel or the “Applications” menu. Both of these need 22 and 24px icons, but for the longest time, the only icon available for Linux users is a symbolic link in /usr/share/pixmaps of a rather high resolution, which makes firefox branding blurry system-wide.

If Firefox 3.5 shipped its Linux icons in /usr/share/icons/hicolor with 16,22,24,32,48,64 and 128 sizes, the beautiful new icon and the Firefox branding would always look beautiful and consistent.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
David Naylor
Posted on:
June 23, 2009 at 7:04 pm

Great. Firefox’s head did look a bit wonky in RC 2.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Simon
Posted on:
June 23, 2009 at 7:19 pm

Yes, the newer Windows/Linux icon looks quite a bit sharper than the old one…

I do agree with Victor though – although this icon is good for the window title bar, it would be good to provide the full range of sizes for elsewhere in the UI – desktop icons, application menus, etc.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Jonne
Posted on:
June 23, 2009 at 10:54 pm

The 16×16 icon looks great now :-)

Thanks for listening to us whining Linux users, and great work on the icon.

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Luk
Posted on:
June 23, 2009 at 11:02 pm

Much, much better than RC1/2. I was very disappointed by the new 16×16 once I saw it in the wild.

Thanks a lot!

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
Antwan
Posted on:
June 23, 2009 at 11:15 pm

Concerning 16×16icon, I prefered RC2 iteration.
It had a higher constrast, (on the borders), which gave it a sort of “strenght” and “robustness”.

This impression is no more present in the new iteration, the 16×16 icon looks like a toy. (as XP icons indeed, an IE6 one, particularly)

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Onur Firat
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 1:33 am

The new Linux/Windows icon looks good! I think it is good enough for the title bar. Great work!

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
Francisco
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 3:28 am

small icon version is much better in this last iteration. Good work.

Alex, I have a little problem with the tab layer in the last nigtly build of Firefox, please, take a view at this capture http://www.flickr.com/photos/ftosete/3580410119/
cordial greetings

Comment Number:
9
Written by:
Kurt (supernova_00)
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 3:38 am

Much better! Thanks Alex and iconfacotry!

Comment Number:
10
Written by:
Dorus
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 4:01 am

Great that it was possible to update the 16×16 icon, the new 16×16 icon looks much much better then the old new 16×16 icon :D

I still think i like the 3.0 16×16 more then the new one, but as the new icon looks superior on higher resolutions. So overall the new icon is a big win.

Comment Number:
11
Written by:
pd
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 4:51 am

I didn’t want to whine about the 16 x 16 but it really did look poor. The new version is shit hot :)

I’m very proud of everyone who made this process available to general comment and whom has engaged with the process.

Congratulations.

Comment Number:
12
Written by:
voracity
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 6:21 am

Fantastic. The lighting looks great now.

Comment Number:
13
Written by:
RyanVM
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 9:01 am

Much better!

Comment Number:
14
Written by:
Nuss
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 10:49 am

Great work, Anthony (and Alex)! You nailed it!

Comment Number:
15
Written by:
Max Shirshin
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 11:55 am

The new small Windows icon is much, much better!

Thank you for listening to the community feedback and making good changes, even at the very edge of the final release!

Comment Number:
16
Written by:
Matt
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 11:59 am

Hmm, I’m not sure if I like it better than the RC2 icon, but it seems to satisfy many of the complaints others had. Either way, both icons are fantastic improvements over the 3.0 icon.

Comment Number:
17
Written by:
C
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 12:28 pm

I have to admit, I liked the 16×16 in RC2 better. Seemed more sharp and defined. This is a bit more muddy.

Comment Number:
18
Written by:
rob terhaar
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 3:43 pm

I’m glad that the firefox 3.5 icon is still being tweaked. I really think you should consider decreasing the amount of glare on the globe. It makes the firefox 3.5 icon stand out in my os x dock in a really bad sort of way.

Comment Number:
19
Written by:
David Tenser
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 9:27 pm

Much better 16×16 icons. I appreciate that the globe part of it was blurred out slightly to not produce that sharp white dot in the middle.

That said, did the fox become too blurry now? I kind of like how the fox sticked out more clearly in the previous iterations. No big deal though; the last icon does look great.

Comment Number:
20
Written by:
Lee
Posted on:
June 24, 2009 at 11:37 pm

The 16×16 icon is much better. I love the new icon.

Thank you! :D

Comment Number:
21
Written by:
Anders Johnson
Posted on:
June 25, 2009 at 12:49 am

I actually find the 2nd iteration of the 16×16 icon to be the best. The perfect balance between classic and refreshing. But the 3rd is well done also, though I rather preferred the spiky tail over this rounded one.

Comment Number:
22
Written by:
Nick
Posted on:
June 25, 2009 at 12:55 pm

The ears still look slightly off (too sharp), but the new RC3 icon does look 10 times better than the RC2 icon. Thank you for listening to user feedback!

Comment Number:
23
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
June 25, 2009 at 5:27 pm

The 16×16 still doesn’t look right. It looks better than the last one, but too bright I think. I don’t like that shade of orange.

Comment Number:
24
Written by:
-fullmetaljacket-
Posted on:
June 25, 2009 at 7:07 pm

nice work with the firefox icon.
can you also do some refresh work with the minefield icon to make less boring? :D

Comment Number:
25
Written by:
KX
Posted on:
June 28, 2009 at 3:44 pm

Alex Faaborg:
The old icon is still shown in the Windows taskbar when displaying the “About Mozilla Firefox” panel. I know this is fairly trivial, but I went ahead and filed it as a bug here (#497333). I hope this hasn’t already been brought up too many times!

Comment Number:
26
Written by:
KX
Posted on:
June 28, 2009 at 3:50 pm

Ack! Sorry, I used the wrong bug number. I meant this one (#501029). Sorry for the confusion!

Comment Number:
27
Written by:
Ian
Posted on:
June 29, 2009 at 8:23 am

RC3 is definitely best. The ‘bold’ look of RC2 just looked cartoony and dated IMO… love the new one :)

Comment Number:
28
Written by:
SLA80
Posted on:
June 30, 2009 at 5:28 pm

Alex, could you update all logos on https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3.5/Logos to the LATEST (RC3) version? This is the main source of Firefox logos for the Web, but all logos here still have low-res shadows.

Comment Number:
29
Written by:
SLA80
Posted on:
July 14, 2009 at 3:24 am

Looks like Alex Faaborg fell into hibernation… He wakes up just prior next Firefox alpha release.