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Top 5 Worst Favicons

February 7th, 2009 at 9:09 am | Posted under: Icon Design

While I was working on the new favicon for my site, I started thinking about writing a short post which would show off the best favicons I have come across recently. Unfortunately, every one that came to mind was either bad, very bad, or absolutely awful.

So, instead, I have listed five of the worst ones I have come across in recent days. Perhaps I will write a "Top 5" article on the best favicons sometime later, but finding good ones seems to be quite difficult actually. So, we'll start with #5...

5) Google

This icon has been taking flak ever since it appeared, and it has deserved every bit of it. How could a busy little mess like this wind up on the homepage of Google? As an icon designer, the last thing you want to do is make an icon that is hard to recognize, or one that is too busy. Not surprisingly, the reaction most people had when they saw it for the first time was "What the hell is that?". Let's hope Google gets their act together and makes a new, clean version of the capital "G" icon.

4) Freshmeat

This is the sort of thing that you just can't believe unless you see it with your own eyes. Is it really true, is this really live on a popular website? How can you look at that and not see that something is seriously wrong?

Right off the bat you can see that it has been resized quite terribly, and several of the pixels around the edges have been erased, leaving it looking deformed. I do think I can see what they had in mind, though; they wanted to create a round icon with a transparent background. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that alpha-transparency can be used in a favicon, and this undoubtedly resulted in many light-colored opaque pixels around the edges. In an effort to clean it up, they erased too much of the edge, leaving the mess you see here.

This is a perfect example of what not to do. If you want a round icon with a transparent background, your only option is to make a 32bit icon that makes use of alpha-transparency. If they (stupidly) felt this wasn't an option, they should have just left the edges alone and placed the icon on a plain white background. This isn't very good choice, but the end result will be much better than what you see here. I don't know, maybe I can forgive them, because it's obvious they really aren't concerned with how their website looks at all.

3) Yahoo

Here is just one of the many examples that show how Yahoo is still in the dark ages. What's sad is that they apparently created this ugly little thing intentionally. All you have to do is look at the other icons on their homepage, and you'll see that most of them are just as jagged as this one. The only reason why it has rated higher than the Freshmeat icon is because it seems that Yahoo really does think this is an attractive style. They really just don't know what they're doing.

2) Slashdot

This one very nearly took the #1 spot on my list. I really do cringe when I see something like this. Now, maybe this icon would have been acceptable in 1994, but times have changed. It's ok to use anti-aliased lines now, Slashdot, I don't think there are too many people around still running Windows 3.1 in 16 color mode. I think the term I'm looking for here is "fail".

And the winner is...

Well, it should be no surprise who tops the list: Digg. Not only does their site have the worst favicon ever, it is probably one of the worst icons ever created. This is truly one of the ugliest icons of all time. Why do I hate it so much? The jagged edges, the awful attempt at creating a drop shadow (which doesn't use alpha-transparency), the right leg being bigger than the other. Do I have to go on? All I can say is that I hope this icon was originally created as a joke. This boxy little guy makes me want to cry.

Closing thoughts

I know some people may not care too much about favicons, but because I am an icon designer I can't help but take a closer look at them. I take pride in my work, and I always try to create an icon to the best of my ability. Unfortunately many of these icons appear to have been whipped up in a few minutes, and somehow they have remained on these websites for years. It always amazes me how such well-known companies can display these ugly, amateurish icons that are seen by virtually every visitor to their website.

I'd love to write a "Top 5 Best Favicons" article, but I think I'll need some help in order to do so. If you have seen a great favicon lately, let me know and maybe it will be included!

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