Just a quick note to get back into the blogging groove (been somewhat preoccupied microblogging on Facebook and to an extent Twitter).

The next version of Thunderbird has the project name Lanikai which made me super happy because it’s one of my favorite beaches of all time. Some photos.

Lanikai beach is on the East side of Oahu, in Lanikai and near Kailua (which is where the Obamas like to stay when they visit Hawaii).  You can walk up to Kailua beach for more action where there’s windsurfing, kite surfing, and kayak rentals.  What’s interesting is that they’re not crowded at all, probably because the towns of Kailua and Lanikai are a bit far from Honolulu and they’re small sleepy towns, more local than tourist area.

The water is very clear, warm, and it’s a very swimmable beach.  The sand is white to light tan and soft.  The beaches are easy to access, and stores are near enough for some coffee, snow cones, or sun block.

I like to think that part of the reason we’re going with Lanikai and beach themes is that it’s aligned to how we’re thinking about the Thunderbird email client.  We want to make Thunderbird run so efficiently that people spend more time on the beach than in their email.  Sounds good to me.

A couple more links for Thunderbird 3.1/Lanikai:

• Thunderbird – Lanikai/Thunderbird 3.1 nightly builds now set up
• A public internet deserves great beaches
• Project page

Keep the feedback coming in, they’ve been extremely helpful and we’re doing our best to incorporate your suggestions.

Please click on the image to see the large file.  In this version we have the different sizes.  The majority of people will view Thunderbird on a daily basis with the smaller sized icons.  The larger icons will be displayed more on the web site, posters, and other promotional items like t-shirts.

Changes in this version:

• Uppermost right wing feathers are rounded to match the other side.
• Second row of feathers on the left wing slightly pointed.

Based on feedback, we’re choosing the white envelope with no seal.

Background Information

• Thunderbird 3 Icon Refresh – Creative Brief
• Refreshing the Thunderbird Icon
• New Firefox Icon

Please provide feedback via the comments section through these blog posts.

Keep the feedback coming in, they’ve been extremely helpful and we’re doing our best to incorporate your suggestions.

Iteration 6. 20090729

Changes in this version:

• A third row of small feathers.  Small feathers are less defined, less bright.  No seal.  Slightly whiter envelope.

Iteration 5. 20090729

Changes in this version:

• Fewer feathers.  No seal.  Slightly whiter envelope.

Iteration 4. 20090729

Changes in this version:

• Logo with seal and example of small version of logo w/ seal.
• Lots of feathers.

Background Information

• Thunderbird 3 Icon Refresh – Creative Brief
• Refreshing the Thunderbird Icon
• New Firefox Icon

Please provide feedback via the comments section through these blog posts.

Iteration 3. 20090715

The icon is being rendered by Anthony Piraino at the Iconfactory.

Changes in this iteration:

• removed seal from previous iterations;
• added detail to the envelope;
• feathers shaped to be slightly more accurate

Current Icon

Background Information

• Thunderbird 3 Icon Refresh – Creative Brief
• Refreshing the Thunderbird Icon
• New Firefox Icon

Please provide feedback via the comments section through these blog posts.

Iteration 2. 20090708

The icon is being rendered by Anthony Piraino at the Iconfactory.

Changes in this iteration:

• rounder/smoother shape for the circle;
• modified the seal/”@” but this detail will be removed in the next iteration;
• warmed up the envelope color, corrected the “v” shape on the envelope;
• added more detail to the feathers;
• updated bottom shadow

Current Icon

Background Information

• Thunderbird 3 Icon Refresh – Creative Brief
• Refreshing the Thunderbird Icon
• New Firefox Icon

Please provide feedback via the comments section through these blog posts.

Iteration 1. 20090706

The icon is being rendered by Anthony Piraino at the Iconfactory.

Current Icon

Background Information

• Thunderbird 3 Icon Refresh – Creative Brief
• Refreshing the Thunderbird Icon
• New Firefox Icon

Please provide feedback via the comments section through these blog posts.

But what about Thunderbird icon? Will it be updated too? Please!

Short answer, yes.  You didn’t even need to say “pretty please”.

We’re beginning the work to update the Thunderbird icon.  We really like how the Firefox icon turned out, and we’ll be working with the folks at Icon Factory so we can be consistent.

I’ve been impressed with how Alex Faaborg has led the charge with the Firefox Icon refresh, his vision, and his ability to communicate and work with everybody.  We’re working with Alex as well, he’s got a great eye, and we’re lucky.

The Process

As I understand, it’s going to be fast and furious in terms of the design and feedback loop the next couple weeks.  I’ll be posting a final creative brief before we get started, and happy to take feedback on it now.  I’ll be posting the iterations and calling for feedback as soon as I get them.

It would be great if all feedback can be done as comments to these blog posts as opposed to direct emails to me.

Some Highlights

• Most of Thunderbird 3 Beta’s Changes Are Under the Hood, PC World, Erik Larkin
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 has new features, plenty of bug fixes, MacWorld, Cyrus Farivar
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 Released, Lifehacker Australia - ‎Feb 28, 2009‎
• Second Thunderbird 3 beta holds off on Lightning, Daily Download - ‎Feb 27, 2009‎ by Seth Rosenblatt
• Several press articles from Germany

Blogs

• Beta Watch: Thunderbird 3 Email Client – TheAppleBlog4 Mar 2009 by Charles Moore
  

The new design at www.mozillamessaging.com

First, go ahead and download Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 and check it out.

The Redesign

We started the redesign process last year with the following goals:

• Make it easy for users to download Thunderbird
• Make it easy for users to learn about Thunderbird and Mozilla Messaging
• Provide Mozilla Messaging with it’s own visual identity while maintaining the “mozilla” feel

We worked with Steven at silverorange and the team at The Royal Order — absolutely great fun to work with them.

We hope users and contributors will have a sense of familiarity with the site and also enjoy some of the imagery and illustrations. One of my favorites is the “totem pole”.  Totem poles can be found in Vancouver (where we have an office) and we wanted to see a different design treatment for Thunderbird.  I think it worked out well (the rocket ship and the cruise boat are fun too).

What’s Next

We have localization, more content to add, and we’re always looking to make improvements to make it easier for users to download Thunderbird.  We’ll be gearing the site for the final Thunderbird 3 release so we have lots more coming.

Some highlights

• Thunderbird 3 Beta 1 taking over where Shredder leaves off
  TechVibes – Canada
  … a lot of upgrades have been made since Thunderbird 2, incorporating feedback and suggestions from previous releases. Highlights include faster message, …
• Thunderbird 3.0 Reaches Beta 1
  PC World – USA
  Mozilla Messaging Inc. Tuesday released the first beta for its open-source Thunderbird 3.0 e-mail client, with the company’s chief executive calling the …
  
• Thunderbird 3.0 reaches Beta 1, but still not feature-complete
  Computerworld – Framingham,MA,USA
  By Gregg Keizer December 10, 2008 (Computerworld) Mozilla Messaging Inc. yesterday released the first beta for its open-source Thunderbird 3.0 e-mail client …
• Mozilla releases Thunderbird 3 Beta 1
  Internet News (subscription) – Fallbrook,CA,USA
  By Sean Michael Kerner on December 10, 2008 9:50 AM At long last, Mozilla Messaging has put out the first Beta release for the Thunderbird 3 open source …
• First Thunderbird 3 beta arrives with UI improvements
  Ars Technica – Boston,MA,USA
  By Ryan Paul | Published: December 10, 2008 – 08:18AM CT Mozilla has announced the availability of the first Thunderbird 3 beta release. …
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 1 Now Available
  Lifehacker Australia – Sydney,NSW,Australia
  All platforms: Mozilla releases the first beta of Thunderbird 3, the next generation of their desktop email client. Meant only for testers, …

Related

• after a few days back on mozilla thunderbird…
  By Rich
  Mozilla Thunderbird came about and I used that for a wicked long time. Then I used Gmail and Google Apps. Gmail pissed me off (royally), switched to Windows Live Domains (Hotmail). Windows Live Domains was okay and had no problems but …

Mozilla Messaging today announced the beta launch of the SpreadThunderbird.com web site.  Spread Thunderbird is the volunteer-run Mozilla Thunderbird advocacy site where community marketing activities are organized to raise awareness and to promote the adoption of Thunderbird.  The Spread Thunderbird site is powered by the open source Drupal web site software.  Community members may submit ideas and join in the effort by visiting http://www.spreadthunderbird.com.

We’re in the final design stages for the MozillaMessaging web site update.  We’d love some feedback on it.

Here are some more screen shots of the homepage:

• Sunrise background – blue button
• Sunrise background – orange button
• Sunrise background – gray button
• Sunrise background – green button
• Green background – orange button
• Blue background – orange button
• Blue background – gray button
• Blue background – green button

The goals of the MozillaMessaging.com redesign are: 1) Get Thunderbird pages onto MozillaMessaging.com, download, marketing pages, etc.; 2)  MozillaMessaging should be distinct from Mozilla.com but with a consistency to show that it’s still all Mozilla;  3)  Design should reflect the Thunderbird product current and future, communication, concepts around email; 4)  Design should reflect our diversity and International community.

Note that future MozillaMessaging and marketing posts from me will be on www.spreadthunderbird.com when we launch in the next coming weeks.

]]> http://www.rebron.org/2008/10/31/mozillamessagingcom-web-site-update/feed/ 4 http://www.rebron.org/2008/10/31/thunderbird-t-shirts/ http://www.rebron.org/2008/10/31/thunderbird-t-shirts/#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:09:49 +0000 rebron http://www.rebron.org/?p=1899

I need some help with the Thunderbird t-shirt.  What’s your preference for the background color?  We definitely need a black Thunderbird t-shirt.  I’m leaning towards the dark green and royal blue.

What do you think?  (also these aren’t the actual t-shirts, the logo in front is just to see how the logo looks on the various color shirts)