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27 May 2005
MetaChat Favicon, Part 3, or maybe 4. Come inside.
I tried my hand at making a favicon. taz is right, it's hard to wrangle pixels when the image is only 16 x 16. I thought I had it tough when I used to make 32 x 32 icons! Check out my attempt. What's wrong with it? Are the ears too diagonal? Does the pancake look like a bird turd? Can you even tell its a rabbit? Anyone else care to try? I found that #A08E50 and #996600 are pretty good colors to use when trying to recreate a pancake.
basically, I've found that making favicons is a miserable thing. The only one I've ever done that I really liked was for viewropa, and I haven't had the least bit of success beyond that one. From what I see, most other sites have had about as much success as I have (if you don't count viewropa heh).
It's an excellent and compelling challenge, though. Everything has to be stripped down to the barest possible representation, so bunny plus pancake is probably impossible. (Just try doing a pancake, alone, in 16 x 16!)
Doesn't work for me. If I look at it for a few seconds it resolves, but for a favicon you want something that people can get the message if they only scan past it for a split second.
Actually, looking at the favicons that end up on my linkbar, Google looks good (okay, it's a "G" - how hard is that?), and everything else looks like poop, including "Gmail", and especially TypePad.
Aside from not necessarily universally resolving to "bunny w/pancake", it's a much clearer, crisper image than we normally see with favicons. I would like to see us have something with that much clarity.
I think it would be clearer? I forgot to add that I took the playboy-ish bunny that someone else (taz?) had made already, and just slightly altered it.
I still like the M and the MC the best, to tell the truth.
Ach. I'm going to end up sounding like a total curmudgeon, but I don't see a toilet there now-way-no-how, dodgy. It's one of those things where you already have to know what you're supposed to be seeing in order to see it.
And iconomy, I would love to see any idea you have just completely disregarding anything that has been done or suggested, or anything.
The thing is that we don't need a bunny to be our favicon, though we could choose that, and we don't have to have a pancake or a vibrating broom - those are just ideas that have made us laugh and represent certain milestones/memories in our history, but the map is not the territory? or vice-versa or something?
I would actually be happier with a not-bunny, not-pancake, possibly more abstract, very visually compelling and super-clear, crisp image.
This is a good article on how to create one, and I really like the graphic examples that they give - very crisp. I'm blown away by the Jeffrey Zeldman favicon. That someone did that in 16 pixels is really amazing. His is the one of a guy in a bluish hat and red shirt.
ok, i've taken my first stab at it, trying to get it to read as both mc and a bunny head. it's been a fun little puzzle as i haven't tried this kind of thing before. i'm not sure what space i have to put it up on so i'm just going to mail it to iconomy and taz, if that's ok. color choice suggestions are welcome.
also, on the other stuff... You guys, if at all possible, please reduce down to 16 pixels tall first, and have a look. I did everything that I could think of with the idea of a carrot, some time ago, and there was nothing that worked. Nothing. zero. zip. zilch.
Which is not to say that you can't make it work, but just show me!
kmellis groks my idea, but i for some reason had it slanted in the other axis, and maybe tone down the green a little bit in size and/or intensity in relation to the orange.
I love iconomy's last one too, and dhruva, thanks so much for the favicon maker link! All this metachat favicon creativity has really made me want to create one for our site, but I've been inhibited by the wee problem of having zero design talent. Thanks again!
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
