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Favicons, Episode 8

By Smashing Editorial, November 20th, 2008 in Design Showcase | 49 Comments

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 8th episode of the favicons series. For a change a small article with very small images and a quick loading time.

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. Pay close attention to the small details of the 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. All favicons are listed without a particular order. All images are linked - of course, if the page that contained the favicon still exists.

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Favicon Episode 7

By Smashing Editorial, June 24th, 2008 in Design Showcase | 64 Comments

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.

Below you'll find 70 outstanding favicons. 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.

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:
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Favicon Episode 6: Black, Abstract and Hand-Drawing

By Smashing Editorial, March 21st, 2008 in Graphics | 57 Comments

Every now and again we showcase beautiful favicons — tiny pieces of art you'll usually find only if you are looking for them or search through your bookmarks. Below you'll find 50 more outstanding little pieces of art. Please notice that these favicons weren’t chosen simply because of their beauty; it’s been important to us that the favicon perfectly fits to the site design or its content. All favicons are clickable and lead to the sites where they are used.

We've written enough about favicons in our recent posts. If you'd like to find out more about them, how to use them and how to design them properly, you should take a look at the following articles and showcases:
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Favicons Episode 5: The Delicate Beauties

By Smashing Editorial, January 1st, 2008 in Graphics | 54 Comments

The New Year's Eve is a tricky time for designers. Some of us eagerly analyze deadlines, define milestones and refine the time schedule for the upcoming year. The other ones discover the need to update footers and copyright statements on their web-sites (by the way, have you actually replaced "2007" with "2008" in your footer?). Still, even on the January 1^st passionate designers continue to strive for inspiration in order to come up with fresh ideas for the ongoing projects.

If the latter is your case, is there really a better way to find the inspiration rather than in a fine gallery of excellent favicons - our not that secret and very lively passion? We've written a lot about favicons in the previous articles. If you'd like to find more inspiration or find out more about how they are actually created, take a closer look at the following articles and showcases:
Below you'll find more examples of an excellent favicon design; we've collected these delicate beauties over the last three months.

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.

Read more...
Creative Favicons: Tiny Artwork

By Smashing Editorial, September 11th, 2007 in Graphics | 73 Comments

Since visual elements are easier to remember, they can be used to draw visitors' attention to the brand identity of the site. As visual indicators, favicons can establish the communication with visitors and make a web-site easier to remember and get back to once you need it - for instance, once the visitors look for the site in their bookmarks. Still most sites don't make use of them - just like 404-error-pages, favicons are often forgotten or simply ignored. It's time to change that, folks. Every once and again we present some of the most creative and beautiful favicons — to prompt you to design them for your sites. In fact, we are willing to do that until the trend is finally established. The design of favicons might look like a simple task; however to
- make the design recognizable,
- keep it simple and
- combine visual identity with
- visual clarity
- within a 16x16 rectangle
is a creative challenge you shouldn't underestimate. The details build the foundation of a successful logo, and to take care of the smallest details is extremely important for a usable and visually appealing favicon. The images below can be clicked - apparently, they lead to the sites from which the favicons have been taken. The examples show not only how a well-designed favicon might look like, but also which creative approaches can be used to give a favicon the freshness and clarity it deserves. The examples also demonstrate how favicons can support the overall design of the site it is being used on. You can find further favicon-showcases and some more information in the posts we’ve published before:
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Creative Favicons: When Small Is Beautiful

By Smashing Editorial, June 14th, 2007 in Graphics | 87 Comments

We love creative favicons. Their beauty lies in the approach a designer has chosen to put something really unique inside of the 16x16px box. Designing favicons, it's necessary to work with miniature images, and every extra pixel can be the wrong one. A good favicon is original, beautiful and - in best case - fits to the logotype and color schemes used in the web-site. Creating them is a challenge not every designer is able to cope with. It's hard, but not impossible. In fact, many creative solutions are possible, but it's damn hard to come up with some of them once you need them. Sometimes it's enough to rescale the logo to an appropriate size, as shown by Xpanity Favicon: If rescaling doesn't provide optimal results, you can try to extract some parts of your logo and bundle them together, like Kijiji did. We've collected some of them - 40 gorgeous, creative and visually appealing favicons you can use as a source of inspiration, e.g. if you have a creativity block. Images are linked; to visit the page with the favicon you like, just click on it. You can find further favicon-showcases in the posts we've published before:
- Inspire Yourself: 50 Remarkable Favicons
- Inspire Yourself: More Creative Favicons
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Logo Contest - Sketches and Designs

By Smashing Editorial, April 5th, 2007 in Events | 114 Comments

It was a tough decision to make. Three weeks ago we've announced the Smashing Magazine Logo Contest for the most creative, clean and fresh logo for our site. We've received over 190 Logos from 105 participants, living all around the world. We had a big choice and it wasn't easy to select the winner. After all, the logo shouldn't be just creative or gorgeous - it should fit to our web-site perfectly. In our decision we've considered many aspects such as typographic clarity, used color schemes, ideas, simplicity and, of course, design. We've taken our time and selected the best works five days in a row. In the end it was a neck-and-neck race for 5 competitors. We'd like to thank every participant of our contest. We really appreciate your creativity, your work and your time. We'll announce the winner tomorrow. Today, however, we'd like to present most original and interesting works we've received. Not every sketch is gorgeous, so not every design will be presented. Thanks, guys. Your participation means a hell of a lot to us.
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Inspire Yourself: More Creative Favicons

By Smashing Editorial, March 29th, 2007 in Graphics | 57 Comments

Recently we've selected 50 Remarkable Favicons you can inspire yourself from. This follow-up is supposed to give you some more ideas for fresh, inspiring and creative favicon design. Favicons, mini graphics for a particular web-site, can be displayed in the browser's URL bar, next to the site's name in lists of bookmarks, and next to the page's title in a tabbed document interface. To be recognized immediately, favicons have to be visually appealing and fit to the design or logo of a given page. Below you'll find over 45 more beautiful favicons, which can serve as a nice source for inspiration. You can click on favicons - they lead to the page, which uses the image as a page icon.
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Smashing Magazine Logo Contest

By Smashing Editorial, March 14th, 2007 in Events | 90 Comments

Few days ago we've re-aligned the Smashing Magazine web-site, changed the theme and - most importantly - re-designed the navigation menu. So far so good. However, in the end we've found ourselves in a dilemma - Smashing Magazine doesn't have a proper logo, which would mark our identity and relate to the subjects we cover on our pages. In fact, we need a unique, fresh and stylish logo. And since you determine the content of Smashing Magazine, we'd like you to help us in creating it. So, basically, this is what this post is about.
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Inspire Yourself: 50 Remarkable Favicons

By Smashing Editorial, January 31st, 2007 in Graphics | 204 Comments

Actually it's a pity that many designers don't really make use of them. Favicons, mini graphics for a particular web-site, can be displayed in the browser's URL bar, next to the site's name in lists of bookmarks, and next to the page's title in a tabbed document interface. To be recognized immediately, favicons have to be visually appealing and fit to the design or logo of a given page. In fact, if you use Favicons for your sites, users can easily find your URL in their bookmarks - in this way you create some kind of a visual connection between your web-site and your sites' visitors.

However, the design of Favicons can be tricky - it isn't that easy to create a beautiful 16x16px mini-icon. Still, some designers manage to achieve tremendous effects. Logotypes with clear geometric structures are easier to work with than typefaces or abstract images. The color selection corresponds to current Web 2.0 trends. Let's take a look at 50 beautiful favicons you can inspire yourself from. You can click on favicons - they lead to a page, which uses the image as a page icon.

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Online Generators

By Smashing Editorial, November 9th, 2006 in Developer's Toolbox | 174 Comments

One can discuss whether web-generators are useful or not. On the one hand, they don't challenge our creativity, but on the other hand they make our life easier and save our precious time. However, it doesn't matter really. What matters is that we use them if we have to solve some problem quickly and efficiently. We've taken a look at the most useful online-generators for web-development and listed them below.
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