As Lead Visual Designer for Mozilla, Sean works hard at trying to make pretty pictures. Embedded in the Creative wing of the Engagement team, he churns out rasters and vectors for both Mozilla and the greater global Mozilla community.Mozilla Archive
Nightly and Aurora: Space Quest Goodies
Yes, that’s right. The two new logos on the block had a fashion shoot in space and they’ve brought back pictures! Gird your desktop with sleek new wallpaper or slather your browser with a fresh persona! The options are endless!* * dramatization. there are only two options.
A Tale of Two Logos: Nightly and Aurora
Aurora had but newly chased the night, And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light. – John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite Folks, those book words are from an actual book. I looked them up. I have to say, they’re pretty spot on when it comes to introducing the tale I am about to tell – [...]
Illustrating a Hologram in Vector
During a Mozilla Labs week a while back, I was tasked with creating a logo for a yet to be realized project that centered around a person’s contacts. That initial experiment has matured into a full Labs project and is now up and running as Mozilla Labs Contacts, so head on over and check it [...]
Raindrop Logo in CSS
Playing around with -moz-radial-gradient this past while, and seeing the amazing job done on the CSS Opera logo by David Desandro, I thought I’d have a go at recreating one of the logos I illustrated within the past year using pure CSS. The Raindrop logo I created was the prime candidate, as my first thoughts [...]
Mozilla Labs Website Refresh
No, I’m not going to talk to you about a tablet. I’m going to talk to you about a website! The Mozilla Labs website, now with a fresh new coat of paint! *throws up arms in rejoicing fashion* Today, we’ve launched the new theme for the Mozilla Labs site and our project pages. Wider articles, [...]
Logomania, Yet Again!
It has been a little while since I have discussed any designs I’ve been working on at Mozilla, so I thought I’d share some of the logos that I’ve created over the past little while. Both logos showcased here are designed purely in vector within Illustrator and take advantage of many new features found in [...]
Space, Vectors, and wee Mozillians
My life at Mozilla can be summed up in one statement – another day, another insanely fun design request. The latest example I have for your viewing pleasure is the result of a request for branding the new Add-ons Developer Hub – coming soon to an internet near you. It isn’t every day you get [...]
Mozilla Creative Collective is Live!
Yes, that’s right, the Mozilla Creative Collective is up and running and we want you to join! Why you say? Well, did you know that there are achievement badges and design challenges? Did you know you can create your own gallery for others to view and comment on? Did you know you can do all [...]
Animated Personas? Sure!
When it comes to creating Personas for Firefox, most people don’t realize a wee little fun fact about the creation process. If you create a few different frames at the proper dimensions for both the header and the footer, you can piece them together as an aPNG (the example Persona below has a description that [...]
A Web Browser Renaissance
With the launch of Firefox 3.5 today, I’m excited to post an all new wallpaper to commemorate the event! Within the web today, a browsing transformation is underway. We’re seeing constant advancement from the static browsing Middle Ages of old and the ushering in of a new Modern Era of openness, speed and security. Taking [...]
Open Video: I Want My OGG
Last Friday I decided to have a go at teaching myself After Effects. I’ve been wanting to test the waters of motion graphics for a while and decided to take the plunge. A few hours later I had the startings of a fun intro video I’ve been wanting to create for some time now. It’s [...]
CSS3 & Flexible UI: Avoid Recutting UI Graphics for Mobile
Working on the Fennec UI has been an amazing experience. Designing UI elements for a mobile browser has taught me a great deal when it comes to creating interactive graphical elements that are to be used in a very small space. Of course, when I say small space, I mean a small space that has [...]
Firefox New Tab: Now With More Pixels!
As mentioned in the Mozilla Labs post Firefox New Tab: Visual Update, we have been playing around with a new look n’ feel for the New Tab feature. The main inspiration for this visual look comes from the netError styling already found within Firefox. Using the rounded edge boxes on the light grey background, we [...]
Revisiting the Fennec Default Theme
With the release of Fennec Alpha, (Fennec is now in Beta) we showcased an initial default theme created to make mobile browsing easy on the fingers as well as the eyes. Now that a bit of time has passed, we’ve begun brainstorming what another pass at the UI might look like – seeing how we [...]
Logomania!
My first month as Visual Designer with Mozilla Labs has been nothing short of funmazing. I’ve basically been working solely on the elements of design that I love the most – logos and interfaces. I’ve posted previously on the UI design I am working on for Personas, so I thought I’d share some of the [...]
A work in progress…
I thought I’d share this lil guy to get some initial community feedback on him as I am currently illustrating him for a Mozilla Add-ons project. He’s part fox, part machine, he’s… Mulder Fox? No, he’s just our ol’ friend Firefox with some handy attachments to help him sort through – and add to – [...]
Showing More Skin: Personas Revisited, Part 2
As a quick update detailing where I am in the “play nice with Personas” revisions to the default Firefox 3 theme on OSX, I thought I’d share the preview below highlighting some of the changes to the toolbar buttons. *note: these theme changes will only be visible in the browser upon installing a future version [...]
Showing More Skin: Personas Revisited
One of my first tasks as the new Visual Designer for Mozilla Labs is to research how to revise Firefox’s default chrome in OSX so that your Personas really shine through. Currently in OSX, there are two main chrome issues affecting Personas. The first is that the buttons have an opaque background – the custom [...]
Skinning Fennec – Awesomebar
Next we have the awesomebar and its awesomeness in weeee mobile form.
Skinning Fennec – Preferenes side pane
Yet another screen for your viewing pleasure! This time we visit the preferences pane and all the goodies you can toggle within.
Skinning Fennec – Initial Screens
We’ve been plugging away at the default theme for Fennec and I’d like to share where we are thus far in the design. The following screens are the work in progress and any comments/concerns are always welcome!
Mozilla Summit 2008: Open Source Marketing
The Mozilla internal marketing team and Spreadfirefox.com hosted an excellent session on marketing, starting with a strong description explaining marketing practises and how results are achieved through user-targeted campaigns. A main focus of the talk was enabling the community to propose and develop their own Firefox marketing, but at the same time ensuring that as [...]
Mozilla Summit 2008: Design Process
Mike Beltzner gathered a large group of us into the lobby, where we had ample light and airflow, and spoke on the different approaches to implementing design changes in Mozilla products. Methods of the past were discussed, from silently injecting changes into nightly builds to announcing and documenting the changes in more of a “this [...]
Mozilla Summit 2008: Mobile UX
Madhava Enros hosted a talk on Mobile UI and where Mozilla is going within that realm. There was a very enlightening Q&A session in which devs from around the world described how they use mobile in their regions and what is needed in order to advance the platform.
Mozilla Summit 2008: Mozilla Labs Concept Series
Chris Beard hosts a talk on Mozilla Labs and the idea of submitting ideas on potential future project – no matter what the idea – think big! Several videos highlight community ideas on what a future browser should look like and how it should function. Jesse James Garrett, co-founder and President of Adaptive Path, showcased [...]
Mozilla Summit 2008: Fennec (Firefox Mobile)
This session deals with the mobile version of Firefox codenamed Fennec. I’m designing the UI for it now and I will upload screenshots of what may appear in the alpha build later this afternoon.
Mozilla Summit 2008: Product & Technology Roadmap
After a brief update on the glorious landslide, Mike Shaver began speaking on where Mozilla goes from here. Mike showcased a new video/audio capability turned on in the build last night that allows end-users to embed video, cross platform, without flash… Includes closed-captioning and even video/image on-the-fly reflections! After a presentation on where Mozilla is [...]
Mozilla Summit 2008: Spreadfirefox.com
An excellent session talking about giving the power to the users to market the browser in their own way. I’ll be showing my latest version of Kit to the group and will be creating wallpaper for the site!
Mozilla Summit 2008: The History/Future of Web Browser UI
An excellent session showcasing the history of the web browser, from its humble beginnings sitting on one box, to the latest and greatest versions today. It’s pretty nice to see the theme I worked on now within that timeline. There were some excellent concepts for the future of web browsing – very minimalistic UI that [...]
summit.mozilla.org
For a full gallery and text-as-we-go commenting, visit http://summit.mozilla.org!
Mozilla Summit 2008: Main Conference Room
The opening session is beginning. John Lilly thanks us for being a part of creating a product that 1 in 5 people on the Internet around the world use every day. Mitchell Baker now speaking about how the 400 people here are affecting the lives of 200+ million people. Talk continues about what makes Mozilla [...]
Mozilla Summit 2008: Conference Day 1 – Gran Paradiso!
Well here we are all tucked away up in Whistler B.C., settled into the Westin in what can only be described as an absolutely gorgeous location. I’m sitting on my apartment terrace looking at the mountains as I blog this. Gorgeous. We all arrived yesterday and were given a warm reception last night out on [...]