Using Favicon for your Blog or Website (Part 1)

What is Favicon and how it can help you Blog?

A ‘favicon’ is the little graphic you sometimes see next to a website address in your browser. See example below:

When you have a site to your favorites folder, you will also notice the same little icon graphic displayed next to the bookmark. A favicon graphic can help make your web page stand out amongst all the over bookmarks fighting for attention…plus it also looks cool!

In this post we will discuss the opportunities on how to generate the Favicon, you would be able to use as your trademark later. The following post will present the opportunities of activating it in different blogging platforms (Blogger users should follow a different approach than WordPress users).

So, you would first need to have an icon which you would like to use, bearing the extension .ico format. If you search your hard disk, you might find some icons which are generic. I would suggest that you create one to represent your own unique identity. There is quite a number of free icon editor software which you can download from the net.

Before getting to the point of Favicon generation - conversion to the accepted format and size - you need to have a source image. Note that the image you plan to use should be royalty-free and not copyrighted (meaning, you cannot use Coca-Cola’s corporate logo as you favicon).

There are multiple utilities that will help you in the conversion process. Note that you can create icons in 2 sizes: 16x16 and 32x32. To satisfy the visibility in the bigger set of browsers, I would recommend using a 16x16 icon.

Freeware Favicon Creators

Imagicon is a graphics utility designed to convert multiple image files from BMP, JPG or PNG image formats into any of the following image formats (24-bit):

• Windows or OS/2 Bitmap (BMP)
• Independent JPEG Group (JPG)
• Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
• Windows Icon (ICO)

Software is absolutely free to download and use. Compatible with the following platforms: Windows 98/2000/ME/NT/XP/Vista.


Adsen FavIcon is a simple favion freeware creator that lets people make a fav icon for their website, which shows up in IE`s favorites. It can use either bmp or jpg files, and will convert them to ico format using the size and color quality you choose. Not only can you create fav icons, but it can also be used for creating icons for programs. Adsen FavIcon comes with notes on what settings to use for making fav icons and how to install them.

This software is freeware as well and supports most of the Windows OS platforms: Windows 95/98/2000/ME/NT/XP.

Png2ico - simple PNG to ICO converter with no graphic interface, easy to use. To create favicon.ico that contains your logo in the resolutions 16x16 and 32x32, you should use the following command line: png2ico favicon.ico logo16x16.png logo32x32.png.

Note that this is a console application without GUI. You may run it through console or Start/Run only. Double-clicking on the file will not execute it.

The software is freeware and supports the folloing platforms: Windows, Linux, Unix, GNU, etc.

Online Favicon Generators

If you do not wish to download any software, you may also try creating an icon online. Just enter the keywords “online icon generator” into your Google search bar, and you should be able to find several programs that you can try. These online software sites now make it incredibly easy for anyone to convert normal graphics into favicons. In most cases, you just browse to the file on your PC and click ‘generate icon’. After your favicon is created you can download it on your Hard Drive for future use.
Selected sites that can be used for online favicons and icons generation:

http://www.favicon.co.uk/
http://www.htmlkit.com/services/favicon/
http://www.favicongenerator.com/
http://www.freefavicon.com/
http://www.degraeve.com/favicon/
http://www.favicongenerator.org/
http://www.genfavicon.com/
http://freefavicons.org/