The icon is the first thing the users get to see when they come face-to-face with an add-on, but the simple truth of the matter is that most add-ons hosted on addons.mozilla.org (AMO) do not even have an icon. That is why back in July Mozilla announced an interesting challenge that went something like this: nominate your add-on and Mozilla’s graphic artist will give the add-on’s icon a makeover. 5 add-ons would get a makeover, even add-ons that did not even have an icon.

“The icon is an important part of any add-on, as it appears everywhere the add-on does both on addons.mozilla.org and in Firefox. Yet only half of the add-ons hosted on AMO actually provide a custom icon; the others just use the default green puzzle piece,” explained the Mozilla Add-ons team when the challenge was announced.

Developers of a Firefox 3.6-compatible add-on had until the 23rd of July to nominate their add-on. After the add-ons were nominated, the community had until early August to cast their vote. All the votes are now in, Mozilla counted them all, and 5 lucky add-ons will get a makeover. Mozilla’s graphic artist will give these 5 add-ons an icon makeover:

• Adblock Plus – add-on that blocks annoying online ads
• WiseStamp – a signature creator for Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo!, Hotmail, and AOL
• Facebook Translate – an add-on to translate status updates and comments on Facebook with a simple mouse click
• Webmail Notifier – an add-on that checks your email accounts and tells you how many unread messages you have
• Youtube Music Player – a music player that streams music from YouTube

“Over the next few weeks our designer will work with these authors to create new icons, and we’ll be sure to share the results! Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest,” explained the Mozilla Add-ons Team.