Blog Topic #11: What's a Favicon?

What's a favicon? What file format is it in? Is this a file format that Photoshop natively supports? How do you create a favicon? How do you add one to your HTML code? Where does it appear? How does it affect bookmarks? Why use a favicon?

A favicon is a little icon that appears next to the URL of your website. It also appears next to the title of your page on your tab(If you use them), it also appears next to the bookmark it is a associated in many browsers.

The favicon is in the Windows Icon format(.ico) and is not natively supported in Photoshop. You can download a Photoshop plugin to make one or you can use Irfanview.

In order to utilize this feature you must upload the .ico file in the same directory as your index.htm file, you must also reference this line of code




in the head of each page that you wish the favicon appear.

A favicon is a good way to brand your site and visually remind your users of its presence in their bookmarks.

It is also possibe to use a GIF or a PNG, you can read more at PhotoShop Support.