Logos and the Favicon

 

All marketers can appreciate the importance of a good logo. Millions of dollars and decades of effort go into creating a strong, clear, recognizable symbol that represents a brand. Companies like Nike with their “swoosh,” products like Campbell’s Soup with its venerable red-and-white label, and even celebrities like Oprah with her “O” have succeeded in linking an image in our mind to a feeling of familiarity with what they have to offer.

The latest frontier in online marketing is the favicon. While you may not have heard of these little gems, you’ve no doubt seen plenty. A favicon (short for “favorites icon”) is that small graphic image just to the left of the address bar in your web browser. You can probably see the orange Projectline favicon atop this browser page. Favicons are popping up more & more, and that little piece of real estate presents a great marketing opportunity.

Favicons represent much more than a piece of eye candy next to the address bar. Like the name implies, they show up in Favorites lists. When I view my list of favorites, all the titles can run together and make it difficult to find the entry I want. But if there’s a good favicon associated with the entry I have in mind, it stands out from the list. As a bonus, I’ve just thought about the logo in the process of looking for the favicon in the list, providing more brand reinforcement. Favicons represent a way to get your brand noticed in a list of many (perhaps competing) brands, drive more traffic to your site, and reinforce logo recognition. Huge marketing wins!

Another cool thing about a favicon is its plasticity. Companies can easily experiment with different favicon designs. This BBC article talks about Google’s new favicon and how they’ve changed it over time.

But man, these favicons are SMALL! You only get 16×16 pixels. I actually think this limitation is a good thing. I find that a clean, sharp, simple logo is more easily learned and recognized. If you’re able to construct a good-looking logo in a 16×16 frame, you’ve probably developed a very effective logo. The favicon’s size limitation imposes good design discipline.

The future of favicons looks bright. The Wikipedia entry on the subject mentions additional formats being added to browser standards:

…although many still use the ICO format, other browsers (though notably not Microsoft’s Internet Explorer) now also support the PNG and animated GIF image formats.

Animated GIF favicons? Can you imagine?!?

The only raging debate about favicons seems to be over the pronunciation of the word. I like using soft vowel sounds (“FAHV-ah-cahn”) — it seems to sound best. I hereby declare this to be the standard pronunciation! Let’s see if that sticks…

So work with your web developer to get a favicon on your site. Tinker. Let it evolve. Eventually you’ll develop a great logo, and go a long way toward establishing a strong brand identity.

Not bad for a little 16×16 square.