Mozilla was the

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fi ...

Netscape Communications Corporation Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

and subsequently the

Mozilla Foundation The Mozilla Foundation (stylized as moz://a) is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...

. Its appearance has varied and the mascot has been retired from active use.

Description

Named after the original name, Mosaic, for

Netscape Navigator Netscape Navigator was a web browser, and the original browser of the Netscape line, from versions 1 to 4.08, and 9.x. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corp and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in ...

and

Godzilla is a fictional monster, or '' kaiju'', originating from a series of Japanese films. The character first appeared in the 1954 film ''Godzilla'' and became a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in various media, including 32 films produc ...

, Mozilla was the

of the

and subsequently the

History

Green design

The name "Mozilla" was already in use at Netscape as the

codename A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a Code word (figure of speech), code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may ...

for

1.0. Programmer

Jamie Zawinski Jamie Zawinski (born November 3, 1968), commonly known as jwz, is an American computer programmer, blogger and impresario. He is best known for his role in the creation of Netscape Navigator, Netscape Mail, Lucid Emacs, Mozilla.org, and XScree ...

came up with the name during a meeting while working at the company. The name stood for "Mosaic killer", as the company's goal was to displace NCSA Mosaic as the world's number one

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

. Initially the mascot took various forms, including that of a helmeted

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

or "spaceman", but the eventual choice of a

-like lizard which went well with the theme of crushing the competition, especially because of the similarity between the names. This design rendered Mozilla in the form of a green and purple

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...

, designed by Dave Titus in 1994. Mozilla featured prominently on Netscape's web site in the company's early years. However, the need to project a more "professional" image (especially towards corporate clients) led to him being removed. Mozilla continued to be used inside Netscape, though, often featuring on

T-shirt A T-shirt (also spelled tee shirt), or tee, is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a ''crew neck'', which lacks a collar. T-shirts are general ...

s given to staff or on artwork adorning the walls of the Netscape campus in Mountain View. When Netscape acquired the website directory NewHoo in 1998, they rebranded it the Open Directory Project with the nickname "

DMOZ DMOZ (from ''directory.mozilla.org'', an earlier domain name, stylized in lowercase in its logo) was a multilingual open-content directory of World Wide Web links. The site and community who maintained it were also known as the Open Directory ...

" (Directory of Mozilla) due to its similarity to the Mozilla project. A green and purple image of Mozilla was placed on every page of the site, which continued even after Netscape's disbanding when it was acquired by

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

Red design

The name "Mozilla" later became more prominent when it was used for the open source browser of the same name. With the launch of the

mozilla.org The Mozilla Foundation (stylized as moz://a) is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the Open-source software, open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies tha ...

web site in 1998, the mascot was redesigned as a larger, fiercer red ''

Tyrannosaurus rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...

''. The new design was by

Shepard Fairey Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. In 1989 he designed the " Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (...OBEY...) sticker cam ...

of "Obey Giant" and

Barack Obama "Hope" poster The Barack Obama "Hope" poster is an image of US president Barack Obama designed by American artist Shepard Fairey. The image was widely described as iconic and came to represent Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. It is a stylized stencil ...

fame. By September 2012, the mascot – referred to as "the dino" and "he" – had been "retired from active duty", removed from official Mozilla branding, and replaced by a "Mozilla"

wordmark __notoc__ A wordmark, word mark, or logotype, is usually a distinct text-only typographic treatment of the name of a company, institution, or product name used for purposes of identification and branding. Examples can be found in the graphic iden ...

, all

lowercase Letter case is the distinction between the Letter (alphabet), letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain lang ...

and set in

Meta Meta (from the Greek μετά, '' meta'', meaning "after" or "beyond") is a prefix meaning "more comprehensive" or "transcending". In modern nomenclature, ''meta''- can also serve as a prefix meaning self-referential, as a field of study or ende ...

Bold typeface. (And by July 2019, the latter had been replaced by "moz://a", in Mozilla's

Zilla Slab Zilla Slab is a free to use, open source slab serif font commissioned by the Mozilla Foundation as a part of their rebranding process from mid-2016 to 2017. It was created in 2017 by Peter Biľak and Nikola Djurek, typeface designers for the Ty ...

Highlight typeface and within a rectangle of a tone or color contrasting with that of the lettering.)

References

External links