Just to start from the beginning, let’s go over the pronunciation of this word. As is the case with many words in our evolving language, you will hear a couple of variations. Some will say “fave-icon” because it holds true to the full words that the term was derived from. Others say “fav (rhymes with ‘have’)-ee-khan” or “fav-ick-on” (emphasis on the last syllable) because it rolls off the tongue more naturally (and follows the precedent of the “emoticon” pronunciation). I adhere to the latter, but hey, anything goes, I guess! Listen here if you are curious to hear how others pronounce it.
But even if you don’t know it by name, or don’t know how to pronounce it, you probably already know what a favicon is. I sometimes get clients that ask about “the little logo beside my website name”, and I know they’re referring to a favicon.
When you’re viewing a website in a browser, you’ll notice that there’s an icon in the tab next to the title of that webpage.
If you bookmark the page, you’ll notice that this same little icon also shows up in your bookmark list or favorites list. That’s why it’s called a favorites icon.
Sometimes the favicon is the logo of the company, but since the icon is so small (16×16 pixels at its smallest), it often has to be simplified to a related visual element.
Designing a favicon is something that your web designer/developer can do. It’s not at all necessary for a functioning website, and is therefore often overlooked, so it’s nice if they’ve already done it – it means they are focused on the details!
But it’s also something YOU can do! There are online favicon generators that make it pretty easy to upload an image and generate the correct file needed to have your very own favicon. Some favicon generators are:
Your favicon doesn’t stop with your bookmarks list and browser tab. Your favicon can also serve a triple threat as your mobile icon!
If you use an iPhone or Android mobile device, you may notice that there is a handy way to bookmark a webpage by adding it to your home screen. What this does is place an icon directly on your home screen that links directly to this page.
If you don’t have icons created specifically for this purpose, Android will by default use your favicon.
Apple devices will create a miniature screenshot of your webpage as the icon.
Your web page squished down to a tiny square screenshot is not always ideal, so, it behooves you to have your web designer create mobile icons for your website. In these cases, you could potentially still use the same basic image as your favicon, but mobile icons are larger (72×72 on iPad displays). So you can take advantage of the larger size to make your mobile icons higher quality and more detailed than your favicon.
Going beyond the standard favicon and creating these mobile icons will help keep your brand consistent across those user experiences as well.
A favicon may not seem all that important to you in the grand scheme of things, but if you’re serious about your brand, then you know that the success of your visual brand is in the execution of the details. All the little details add up! Since a favicon also enhances user experience (helps people easily identify what your web page is), and is so easy to set up, there is no reason why every small business owner shouldn’t have one for their website.
It’s a wonderful thing to have choices. The reality, however, is that we often rely on the default instead of making conscious decisions to the contrary. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but this tendency does affect all areas of our lives, including our business marketing.
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