How to create a favicon

A favicon (short for “favorite icon”) is that small icon displayed on the browser URL bar, on the bookmark lists and, for certain browsers, on the navigation tabs. While a favicon will not drastically change your traffic it will certainly improve the look of your blog, adding a unique icon and making sure that readers are able to individuate your site inside bookmark lists easily.

1) General Guidelines

A favicon is nothing more than a 16 pixels by 16 pixels icon, and the file has a .ico extension. As you can imagine it is pretty difficult to put complex graphics in such a small frame. When designing your favicon, therefore, you should concentrate on simple images or letters. Make sure that the color of the favicon reflects the color of your website, so that readers will be able to associate the icon with the site.

2) Using Photoshop (skip this point if you are not using Photoshop)

Adobe Photoshop is probably the best alternative for a well-designed favicon. The standard Photoshop can not handle .ico, so the first thing to do is to download a Windows Icon Photoshop Plugin (you can download it here).

Once you have the Plugin installed you should create a 64 x 64 pixels canvas and start playing with it. After you are done designing the favicon you will need to resize the image. Go to the Image Size menu and click Resample Image. This process will make sure that the image will not blur as you scale it down.