Favicon questions

General Web Dev
1

It was brought to my attention recently that if my client’s website doesn’t have a “favicon” then we will get page errors. (I had no clue!!)

So I have some questions about this topic…

1.) What should the favicon for my client’s website look like?

You don’t have much space, and not every company has a logo or name that you can easily convert to a tiny cube!!

So what should we do?

2.) What is the correct size of a favicon?

Pixel dimensions?

How big should the file size be?

3.) How hard is it to make a decent looking favicon?

I have GIMP and Inkscape, but am extremely limited in my knowledge of either.

Do you have to use a vector tool to make a favicon?

4.) Don’t favicon’s eat up lots of bandwith?

5.) Where do I physically place the favicon on our server?

6.) In general, how important is a favicon?

Thanks.

2

I would suggest a Google search would answer those questions in depth.

There are also online favicon makers as well as converters to convert your logo into a favicon.

1 Like
3

You can make the icon 32 x 32, but it will shrink it down to 16 x 16, so when I make a favicon I just make it 16 x 16. Optimization, baby!! :smile:

V/r,

:slight_smile:

4

Let’s use that attitude for every question and then we can eliminate SitePoint.

5

I understand where you are coming from, but I believe you are mistaken. Many have specific code problems that can’t be easily found on Google.

That is not the case for your questions though - they are general favicon questions. I just googled and found answers within seconds.

6

Most of your questions and everyone else’s questions on SitePoint can be Googled.

Most.

Why waste time sayng you don’t want to help?

My questions were focused and intended to start a discussion to get people’s opinions and approaches - not argue. :unamused:

7

Many don’t know what to google for - that’s the difference here. If they knew their issue then they could do that. Soemthing “not working” isn’t really google-able.

8

The OP in this thread could have Googled things, and yet I had time and decided to help out by posting a possible solution…

If I didn’t have time or interest, I would have moved on to the next post.

But, back on topic, how does one Google…

9

Whatever you want! We can’t answer that. Do they have a logo? Most favicons mimic the logo.

1 Like
10

Whatever you want. my website has a logo and a company phrase. I just use the logo since I can sorta fit it.

11

Look, we are making progress!! :wink:

So you are saying a favicon should mimic a logo?

To my OP, unless you have a really simple logo like Google - there is that darn word again!! - then that wouldn’t seem like a very good first choice…

Should it be something like my thumbnail and a Capital Letter?

I dunno…

12

How can you possibly fit a Company Logo or Company Phrase in 16 X 16 pixels??

Care to share a link to your website?

Or better, do you have a handful of favicons that you think really accomplish what they should?

See, I still don’t even really get the PURPOSE of these favicon things?! :confused:

13

Depends.

[quote=“mikey_w, post:12, topic:114803”]
How can you possibly fit a Company Logo or Company Phrase in 16 X 16 pixels??
[/quote]Because you scale down the image when you get it to a favicon (e.g. a 250x250 image can be resized to 16x16) If you can still make it out then use it.

Crop out some white space, etc.

14

Can we see the current logo? Kind of hard to give you answers if I don’t know where you are starting from.

1 Like
15

My client doesn’t have a logo yet.

We are just using stylized font for now… (Think Google, SitePoint, CNN, etc.)

16

Perhaps try to not make it overly huge and something you think can reasonably translate into a favicon.

If your clients website is two words or something, perhaps make the favicon the two words initialized.

E.g. Sitepoint may be “SP” or Google Mail can be “GM” or something like that.

17

Sitepoint has a logo though… (see favicon to see it). Google technically does too, and so does CNN… so I’m not following.

18

All I see is a grey globe in FireFox right now…

All I see if an SSL lock on www.google.com

Another grey globe…

19 
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="http://www.sitepoint.com/favicon.ico">

http://www.sitepoint.com/favicon.ico

Sounds like your browser is just having a hard time viewing favicons.

1 Like
20

I don’t use Firefox very often (give me a few moments and I’ll try that next)

Here it is from Google Chrome: