Well, as a project manager once asked me; “What’s a favicon?”. It’s one of those tiny little 16×16px pictures that sit up in your address bar. It has no functionality, and does nothing more than simply look pretty. Or is there more? Take this for example,

Last week, for no apparent reason whatsoever, Google changed its favicon from the uppercase “G” of its logo to its lowercase “g”. And the blogs have gone crazy. They didn’t change the logo, they didn’t change the home page, they didn’t change the results page… they just changed a sixteen-pixel square and created a stir. Now that’s branding.

Not only that, but the favicon plays an important part within the browser. See the right image for an example, where no Favicon is available, the browser default kicks in – which in this example makes my bookmark look out-of-place.

But there’s more… (and I probably shouldn’t be mentioning this, but) a Favicon can move in Firefox!! Just make an animated gif (resource). Furthermore, Favicon-type things can be of more importance when considering mobile devices. For example, if you add my blog to your Home Screen on an iPhone or iPod you see the icon to the left. It’s a little touch, but it adds a lot of value to my users (resource) - and can often be the difference between getting bookmarked and not.

So the answer… very important! And with the process of making an icon being so quick and painless (resource), there’s really no excuse! That is, unless, you don’t know what a Favicon is!

Via BrandNew

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