Thunderbird (2023)Copied

In May 2023 Thunderbird shared a completely redesigned logo after nearly 20 years of small, iterative changes. The project's announcement said the software was evolving into something more modern while keeping its powerful customisation, and deserved a fresh logo to represent that revitalisation, without forgetting its roots and its vital connection to Mozilla.

So the team went back to the source. It asked Jon Hicks, the creator of the original Firefox and Thunderbird logos, to reimagine his own design. How-To Geek reported that the new logo still depicts a bird holding a letter, but stylised very similarly to the current Firefox logo, and noted that the previous redesign had come in 2018 with Thunderbird 60.

Hicks wrote that it is extremely rare to be asked to redesign your own old work. Mozilla wanted to communicate the planned improvements without abandoning the brand equity built up over the years, and the sweet spot was changing the viewpoint while using Mozilla's recent branding update as a guide. He treated it first as a monochrome logo, adding shading later. The old one had become affectionately known as the wig; the announcement called it the wig on an envelope.

How-To Geek added practical details: the Mac and iPhone versions get a white background to match Apple's guidelines, Android gets an optional adaptive version, and the logo would ship with Thunderbird 115, codenamed Supernova.

Thunderbird's own announcement was frank about its past: after many years of being viewed as stagnant, it said, the project was enjoying a resurgence, with new energy from users, contributors and the core team. The old logo had seen only small, iterative improvements over nearly 20 years. Admitting that change can be uncomfortable, it asked people to live with the new design for a while, let it breathe and sink in, before judging. That is good advice for any redesign, and rare to see a project put it in writing.

This is a model refresh. The original designer understands what the mark must keep, and aligning it with Firefox makes Mozilla's family legible again. The bird finally looks like it is flying somewhere, which is the message the project wanted to send.