Favicons are small 16 by 16 pixel icons that are associated with websites. They’re usually displayed next the browser’s address bar, in your list of bookmarks and on your open tabs.

google-favicons-1

They can be especially useful if you’re looking at multiple web pages at once.

If you’re browsing your bookmarks (favourite sites) or picking out a tab when you have 10 or more open, then favicons are the only unique graphic or image that can be utilised by the website’s designer. For this reason, great consideration is often given to designing them.

Google have changed their favicon twice is recent times, the most recent is the result of design competition that saw a student from Brazil submitting the favourite.

Different Uses

Different websites use the favicon in different ways, for example they can be;

  • Company logos
  • Functional icons
  • Playful brand extensions

Technical Importance

Favicons are also important technically. According to YSlow, a web development browser plugin by Yahoo, not having a favicon can waste resources;

Since the browser requests this file, it needs to be present; if it is missing, the browser returns an error.

Further Reading on Favicons