|
  |
|
|
Creating a favicon for your website
You see them everywhere and all the time when browsing the web. A favicon is the little icon that you see in the addressbar next to the URL or web address of the website you're currently visiting.
Favicons can be a good way of identifying your website for your users, or to distinguish yourself from competition. This same icon is used when a user bookmarks the page, to be displayed in the bookmarks menu next to the title of the page. Creating favicons can be true art as is takes skill and patience to make one. The icon must be 16x16 pixels and that's really small. Especially when you're going to use your site or company logo as a favicon, you have to have good design skills to fit your usually pretty large logo into this tiny 16x16 pixel area.
Favicons must be saved with an .ico extension. These are the only restrictions for making a favicon; the size and file format. So how do you make an icon like this?
You could use an online generator to have your favicon generated automatically from any image you select. There are a variety of online generators, so finding one in Google shouldn't be difficult.
All you'll need when doing it this way is the image or logo you want to convert to a favicon. The results may vary, depending on the size and quality of your original image, the way your chosen generator handles images or the complexity of the original image. To get perfect favicons, you're better off creating one by hand. Using image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop ( free trial on www.adobe.com ) or the free alternative Gimp ( www.gimp.org ) you can control every part of your 16x16 pixel icon.
Starting from scratch with a blank canvas in any image editing software you paint every pixel by hand. As the canvas is only 16x16 pixels, it won't take that long. The most effort will be needed with optimizing your icon so it looks sharp and readable when zoomed to 100%. This is best done by trial and error, so keep painting those pixels over and over again until you're satisfied with the result. When you're done designing, it's time to save the image as an .ico file. To do this, you'll need a Photoshop plugin (if you're using Photoshop) or choose File > Save As and select .ico in the Select File Type area if you're using Gimp.
Alternatively, you could save your design as a .jpg (or .gif, .bmp or .png) and upload this file to any online favicon generator. It'll automatically convert the .jpg file to an .ico file. The results will be great. Now that your icon is ready to use, you'll need to upload the icon to your webserver, into the same directory as your index.html/index.php file. Make sure that the icon file is called favicon.ico exactly, as that's the standard for browsers that are trying to locate the right file to showcase. Then add this line of HTML code to your index.html/index.php file (in between the <head></head> tags): <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico"> Save the file, upload it and you're done! Try to visit your website and if you did it right, the icon will show up just next to the URL in the addressbar.
If it doesn't, it's probably a browser caching issue. Try it again later to see if it works. For more info, just type "favicon" in Google and you'll find dozens of good articles on the subject. |
|
 |
|
No reactions yet.
Please login or sign up to rate this intel.
Please login or sign up to add a comment.
The copyright for this content entitled "Creating a favicon for your website" has been specified by the contributor as:
All Rights Reserved
This content may not be copied, distributed or adapted by anyone under any circumstances.
|
|
|
This intel was contributed by t010
|
May, 2012
2008
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2009
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2010
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2011
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2012
January, February, March, April, May
|
|
Not a member yet?
Qondio is a powerful network for making it online. If you have a website to
promote, we can help.
Sign up and get in on the action.
|
|
Welcome to Qondio! Discover the awesome power this network can deliver by going to our About page. Or you could skip straight to the Sign Up form.
|
|
