Blogging Fool

When building your own little corner of the web, customization is King.  Sure content is King once you are all set up, but it is important to make your space your own before you start populating it with all your mad creative genius.  One of the ways to do this, and start building your own personal brand is that little image you see to the left of the URL in the browser line that tells people “No, I am not the property of Blogger, I am ME!”

Another benefit of a favicon is that it shows up in search results so you are essentially able to embed an image right alongside your search result and get it to stick out in a crowd.

That little image is called a favicon and it is a simple little file, called, amazingly enough “favicon.ico” that you just pop into your site’s home directory, add a little code to the header section of your site and voila – you have just stuck your band’s sticker on your shiny new Stratocaster and told the world you are more than just another Wordpress blog.

If you are using wordpress there are several plugins that will help you do this, for example MaxBlogPress’s Favicon (that requires you register your email) gives you instant links to a variety of favicon directories, and does all the necessary coding for you.  Another is Shockingly Simple Favicon that pretty much does what it implies – makes it really easy to place a custom image to the left of your URL.

But what about creating something from scratch that really reflects your design, brand and personality?  I found a couple of really cool sites that make this even easier and more fun and aren’t exclusive to Wordpress; they can be used for any website.  Try it out for yourself on your own site and you’ll see how this seemingly innocent little distinction can bring you a great feeling of satisfaction.

The first of these is Favicon.ico Generator that allows you to actually draw your icon in a pixel by pixel grid.  It also allows you to import an image and then preview the resultant output.

The second site is FavIcon from Pics that similarly allows you to import any image to create a favicon.ico instantly, preview it and then download your new icon, the code you need to insert in between your head tags and the instructions to do so, all contained in a little zip file.  And it’s completely free.  Awesome!  This free service even allows you to create an animated version of your favicon with scrolling text.

Do you know any other cool services for creating favicons?  I’d love to hear about them.

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