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The Fox Unleashed

Feb 16 2013 · 5 comments · Branding, Illustration ·4

Yesterday finally saw the release of a project I had been working on for quite some time last year. Commissioned by Wolff Olins I created a series of nine fiery foxes as part of the total branding concept for Mozzila’s new Firefox OS for mobile devices. Very proud to see these guys finally roam free.

 

Sketching

Whenever I get a call from Mike Abbink (creative director at Wolff Olins) asking me if I can do some explorations I know I’m about to embark on a journey. This sounds a bit pedantic but it is the only way to describe the way the design process always seem to twist and turn in ways and directions I never really see coming. So when Mike phoned me up in August of 2012 this project turned out to be no exception.

The way I always start work for Mike is based on the loosest of briefs. He usually doesn’t bother me with too much background and just lets me get on with it. It being sketching. A lot of sketching. And after a ton of sketching… some more sketching. As broad and wide I as can possibly go. All based on: “we want to let the fox roam free”. Of course it was a little more than that, but not much. The fox needed to be  fun and friendly, supportive, protective, fast and powerful, superhero-like even.

The style, the pose, the level of abstraction; it was all to be determined.

So sketch is what I did… (these are only a few).

stage1fox_sketches

stage1fox_sketchesB

stage2foxes

 

 

In the meantime of course the team at Wolff Olins in New York were developing the brand that these illustrations were going to become a part of. So some of these were put into vector early on. To test and hone integration with brand as a whole.

It was also necessary to see  in an early stage how we could keep all this technically feasible.

 

stage1fox_earlyvectors

 

 

A Fox on Fire vs. a Firey Fox

Exploring the ‘fireyness’ of this fire fox presented soon us with and interesting problem. When does a fox made of fire turn into a fox on fire… The more firey he was the more agile and ‘free’ he could be, but at the same time lost more of his foxyness. People started seeing a resemblance with a dragon or just a woefully tortured animal.

This needed to be turned back. It had to be a fox that, only through his movements would be more or less firey. Most of it would have to end up in the tail. This was incidentally also the way the fox in the existing FireFox logo was built up.

Because of the all the freedom Mike had allowed me in exploring the foxes, I had drifted away from the existing logo quite a bit. This was all part of the plan of course. In not letting ourselves be limited by the logo in style, we had all the freedom to thoroughly explore all the possibilities… now however the time had come to steer it back to the existing  FireFox logo as not to allow for a rift to develop between the two.

Besides all this we also needed to work towards a more singular look. It all had to become the one FireFox in nine different poses freed drom the globe of the iconic logo. So we needed to look at its face, and fur. And the abstraction style on the flames need to be pulled together.

 

FFX_sketch01
FFX_sketch02

 

 

And after some more sketching, drawing and layering vectors and a LOT of tweeking of details this is what the fox turned out in all his new found freedom… The illustrations were all built up with different layers using different blending modes to achieve nice depth of color.

The foxes and their tails were also built in segments, each of which was in their own layer so they could be easily combined with other photographic element and type.

 

FFX_04_THE_BOLT

FFX_05_THE_LEAP

FFX_06_THE_CHARGE

FFX_07_THE_PIVOT

FFX_08_THE_SWOOP

 

Unleashed

With all of the nine different illustrations done it was time for them to take their place in the brand expression and be released upon the world. It was a proud moment to see them go free, and as expected a great journey to get them that far.

They appeared on everything from billboards to websites. The foxes were even brought to life by the people at Dress Code in some amazing animations.

 

FFX_13_BILLBOARD_1

FFX_14_BILLBOARD_2

FFX_16_FOX_PHONE

FFX_16_FOX_TYPE

47aa9fd7d784783fe30c3deacdc733d9

c5c64924cf2547958c7c50ec176d0fec

 

 

Even though there was all of the Atlantic between the Wolff Olins team and I, it felt really smooth and comfortable working together. This was one of those projects I was not only proud to be a part of, but was also an inspiring and educational experience.

It was great working with people I’ve got a lot to learn from. They did a great job on this as always and I was happy to be involved.

 

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Tags: branding, Firefox OS, Mozilla, Wolff Olins.

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5 Comments

  1. Erwin

    On: 13:11 October 24th, 2013 ·

    Wow, nice job!

  2. merfius

    On: 15:48 February 28th, 2014 ·

    This is fantastic!

  3. merfius

    On: 00:33 March 1st, 2014 ·

    I only see 5. Where can I find the other 4?

  4. BOLT

    16:09 March 6th, 2014 · · author

    Thanks for your comment! If you look closely you can find 6 🙂 but the remaining 3 haven’t been used in Mozilla marketing yet, so I decided to keep them under wraps until Mozilla reveals them. I don’t want to spoil any surprises that they might be working on. I’ll post them up as soon as I’ve spotted them in the wild some where.

  5. Bogdan Iorga

    On: 20:50 October 31st, 2014 ·

    Great work, really great !

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