Favicon Episode 7
Every now and again we showcase beautiful favicons — tiny pieces of art you’ll usually find in your browser’s address bar or when searching through your bookmarks. Favicons are important as they provide visual indicators to visitors and help them to easily associate the content with a bookmark in their browser. Besides, favicons are just nice to look at and there are way too many sites which don’t make use of them. We like to change things. Which is why here is the 7th episode of the favicons series.
We’ve written enough about favicons in our recent posts. If you’d like to find out more about them, feel free to take a look at our previous posts:
- Part 1: Inspire Yourself: 50 Remarkable Favicons
- Part 2: Inspire Yourself: More Creative Favicons
- Part 3: Creative Favicons: When Small Is Beautiful
- Part 4: Creative Favicons: Tiny Artwork
- Episode 5: The Delicate Beauties
- Favicon Episode 6: Black, Abstract and Hand-Drawing
Favicon Episode 7
The favicon of the month was designed by Google. To improve the scalability on new platforms like the iPhone and other mobile devices Google has replaced the old favicon with a new one first after 8.5 years. Not only that – Google has released a whole favicon family which you can observe in a number of Google applications. The primary Google’s favicon is displayed below:
However, some designers claim that Google’s new favicon is ugly and Denis Kortunov knows how to draw a good icon for Google. Here is an example of how it might look like:
…or like this:
…and this is how the favicon could look like:
Below you’ll find 69 further outstanding favicons. Let’s start with the dark ones. Please notice that the favicons weren’t chosen simply because of their beauty; it’s been important to us that the favicon perfectly fits to the overall site design. All favicons are linked to the sites where they are used — you can click on them to get more insights into how favicon design can be related to the layout design.
Black and Grey
Blue and Green
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Rhaya |
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Fused Network |
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urbanphes |
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eliectricurrent |
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arhibet |
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Eden |
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Quadrifolia |
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Twhirl |
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laterloop |
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Jeux de Maux |
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emtwo |
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visible.net |
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SAS |
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Infinity Art |
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Teddy Hwang |
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Get a Freelancer |
Drawn
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wagner graphics |
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Sail Select |
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Arty Crooks |
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SmugMug |
Orange & Red
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anaconsol |
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Headscape |
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nickstedt web |
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HEBAtec |
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Panoye |
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Designer’s Toolbox |
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Keinu |
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suggest.name |
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Ebugogo |
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Fruit |
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iPhone Lemurs |
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Capture All |
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Pro Webdesign |
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Sprout |
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Overheard in New York |
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Toomix |
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Mixx |
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Faveup |
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Computerlove |
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ChaCha |
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Pop Art Blog |
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colorcubic |
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Barrierekompass |
Other
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Infosthetics |
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rgb6 |
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yellowgreen |
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turistik.cz |
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Digialmesh |
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Protein OS |
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Kean Richmond |
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Xen |
Extremely colorful favicons
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Salle Polyvalente |
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ALXA |
Mayank Patel
June 24th, 2008 3:06 amgreat examples….love the google one that Denis Kortunov’s done!
Mayank
prathap
June 24th, 2008 3:07 amextremely good
Wade
June 24th, 2008 3:14 amCool, loving the mini Art! :)
Natrium
June 24th, 2008 3:14 amSmashing Magazine is back on track with a series of good posts in a row!
Erik Reagan
June 24th, 2008 3:19 amI love rgb6′s simply due to the colors vs the letters. :)
IsmSal
June 24th, 2008 3:23 amSmashing Magazine Is the best magazine. It offers the best subjects
BT
June 24th, 2008 3:36 amThe ALXA icon links to the Salle Polyvalente page. You might want to change that…
sundaydriver
June 24th, 2008 3:56 amThats just amazing :D I really love this one. It is practical and gave me some great ideas for doing a website :D
ptamaro
June 24th, 2008 4:23 amNice assortment. I’m wondering how well they hold-up in terms of their alpha-transparency on backgrounds other than white?
Kean
June 24th, 2008 4:30 amSome great examples of great design in such a small space, plus seeing my own favicon there is awesome.
Steve Killen
June 24th, 2008 4:34 amIt’s amazing how creative someone can be in 16 square pixels of space!
Tadd Mencer
June 24th, 2008 4:41 amI use a photo turned to a .fav as my favicon on my site. I think Favicons have become kind of like .. a business card. They tell you what site you’re on visually before people really even read. When I have multiple tabs open in FireFox, it’s the easiest and fastest way for me to tell what is what. Since I’m illiterate.
You can see my favicon in action at http://www.taddmencer.com if you’re interested in seeing.
Yury Akulin
June 24th, 2008 4:53 amI use a part of my logo for the favicon ’cause I think using the whole logo would make a mess at 16×16 size. Here it is: http://www.logodiver.com/
latejedora
June 24th, 2008 5:11 amI like the big coloured G… Google should consider to adopt this one!
Marie
June 24th, 2008 5:12 amGoogle could really use a new favicon…
Raul Riera
June 24th, 2008 5:20 amCan the favicons be animated?
rezr
June 24th, 2008 5:22 amIs there a quick way to capture the favicon? How do you do?
la lène
June 24th, 2008 5:55 amThank you very much for mentionning my website again. =)
Carlos Taborda
June 24th, 2008 6:03 amThanks for mentioning mine too :D but hey our name isn’t Xen! I hope Citrix doesn’t see this cause they might not like it haha :D
Thanks
antipix
June 24th, 2008 6:53 amsalle polyvalente’s favicon makes me sick!
WebGyver
June 24th, 2008 8:10 amSmashing article!
Love that Google favicon by Denis Kortunov! (By the way, thank you for using one of my favicons in your examples.) And keep up the good work.
Lâm
June 24th, 2008 8:17 amCheck mine, it’s animated and lovely :)
http://www.monsieurlam.com/
Mel
June 24th, 2008 8:27 amThanks for including Emtwo’s favicon!
Krista Sanders
June 24th, 2008 9:38 amThank you for including the iphone lemurs favicon!
zero0x
June 24th, 2008 9:40 amextreme colorful looks awful :D
mike harris
June 24th, 2008 10:15 am“Extremely Colorful” should read “extremely annoying”. It’s like a horrible little banner ad only I didn’t “win” anything.
The rest though are fantastic.
Josh
June 24th, 2008 11:03 amBleh, I rather dislike Dennis’s suggestions for a “better” Google favicon.
Stankiewicz
June 24th, 2008 12:19 pmThe Google’s alternative icon looks like Windows Media Player icon. Don’t you see it?
Lindsay
June 24th, 2008 1:05 pmI like the new Google favicon! I think Denis’s suggestion looks too much like something made by Windows. Definitely not what Google wants.
Thomas Milburn
June 24th, 2008 1:13 pmAnother good collection of favicons. Although Google’s favicon may be ugly, does it really matter. A good favicon should stand out from the rest, which Google’s does and should be closely linked to the website. The Google favicon has had so much publicity, everyone knows it stands for Google!
BTW Aren’t the animated icons cheating seeing as they are actually animated gifs as opposed to true icons.
Rodder Shen
June 24th, 2008 1:46 pmI love this one http://www.gotocss3.com/
Cho. P
June 24th, 2008 2:33 pmI think the one at Ploc Media is pretty neat, simple but bold.
Lisa
June 24th, 2008 2:51 pmI love favicons. It’s gotten to a point where I could leave most sitename blank, and know what I’m looking for just from the favicon. I get so sad when I find a website that doesn’t have one. It makes my bookmarks and tabs look so drab.
hongkiat
June 24th, 2008 6:42 pmThanks for the mentioned :-)
Two Socks
June 24th, 2008 10:12 pmMust admit the new google favicon is rather quiet ugly. Denis Kortunov attempts to capture there current market alot better i believe.
Its and interesting post thanks smashing magazine, favicons can certainly be a tricky thing to nail perfectly !
kristarella
June 24th, 2008 10:43 pmI think the old Google favicon was more effective on a small scale.
I especially like Our Type and Fakeblog.
Aaron Riddle
June 25th, 2008 8:31 amGreat list! Not a fan of the “Salle Polyvalente” icon though…
ferdhie
June 25th, 2008 8:46 amI still prefer the present G icon. Much easier on eyes and less obstrusive ;)
nice article though …
Dan Grahn
June 25th, 2008 9:15 amTo anyone who’s looking for how to do the animated ico’s (it took me like half an hour to figure out) just make an animated gif and rename to an icon fie.
Lahure_dai
June 26th, 2008 7:02 amhello smashing, these are cool favicon.
could you also list some software that are specifically designed to design favicon. thanks.
Visible.net
June 26th, 2008 8:10 amGreat post and series. Thanks for mentioning the Visible favicon!! Personally, I have always liked the Smashing red/white “S” favicon you have now. The Google one is sweet too.
Joseph Maguire
June 26th, 2008 8:55 amGoogle is not about pretty. Google is about recognition. I find all of the three alternatives that your provider of art for the favicon replacement of google’s favicon to be less readable as the Google brand. Lets remember a favicon is meant to be apart of brand recognition. And it may not be tied to a piece of type it has to exist on it’s own so to speak. Ultimately it’ll live in bookmarked pages so regardless of your eye sight you can connect more immediately to the brand.
That being said the favicon could be updated and be more readable but I’d be hard pressed to find something without a g in it and being the same typeface as the mark’s g. Oh by the way the G that your contributor made for the 4 color Capital G looks completely like a beachball when compressed to 16×16.
I Think some of the favicon work that was provided was interesting but fell short of having a point, in design theirs no point to create if you cannot communicate. Icons take time to read and if they do not instantly connect the user with a piece of communication it ultimately fails. And I think some would argue communication is tied hand in hand with creating any good piece of art unless the intention is to be vague altogether.
Sincerely,
Joseph Maguire
Joseph Maguire
June 26th, 2008 8:57 amOne other thing. the S from smashing magazine is a perfect example of a well created favicon. its readable, and everyone who’s visited this site will recognize it.
Sincerely,
Joseph
Farid Abdulhadi
June 27th, 2008 2:15 amGoogle’s new favicon does look good. So does Smashing Magazine’s. Eden has also done a great job. I need to start work on mine, thanks for the reminder.
riki
August 1st, 2008 4:06 amThe best and most practical use of a Favicon is the W3C’s validator page. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer
If you see a green favicon, you know immediately that you page has passed validation and you can close the the window without waiting for the rest of the page to download.
If it’s a Red Favicon, you’ve still got some work to do.
Gökhan Yavuz
September 16th, 2008 9:59 amPerfect!Thanks Smashing Magazine.
Ignacio
November 23rd, 2008 6:47 amgreat. maybe in another post you could write about animated favicons. I see lots of sites using animated favicons now.
bye :)
studio76
March 14th, 2010 4:07 amhi !
Look this favicon :
studio76.fr
exprime-rouen.fr
yank.fr