I wanted to do something fun this week and let you decide which popular blogger has the best favicon.

Shoemoney

Shoemoney’s favicon is a scaled down version of his logo and it shows up really well considering the small size of the favicon. It certainly helps to brand his blog.

Problogger

Problogger’s favicon changed when he got the blog design redone last year. The new logo and favicon complement each other and help with the his branding. You can easily see the P and the Ubuntu style circle and dots on your address bar or tabs when you are on the Problogger site making it easy to find in the tabs when you are looking for it.

John Chow

John Chow’s favicon is a picture of half of his face. Considering the small size and how little space there is the favicon does appear to resemble him. I would guess there was a little Photoshop work done to make his favicon appear that clear but they did a good job. I am a little surprised it does not match his blog more, but in many ways his face is his logo.

Daily Blog Tips

Daniel Scocco runs Daily Blog Tips a popular blogging tips blog. The Daily Blog Tips favicon clearly draws its inspiration from their blog name taking out the DBT. Considering the small space it works not to bad, although it does appear to be a little blurry to me.

Now it is your turn. Vote in our poll and help determine which popular blogger has the best favicon!

favicons have gone from being just a graphic or an animated graphic to full fledged games thanks to Mathieu Henri who has created “Defender of the Favicon“. This favicon is a little different than the ones you will find here at FreeFavicon.com. The favicon is actually a Javascript that dynamically updates the favicon. It is playable but not viewable in all browsers. The best browsers to try the favicon game in are Opera 9.5, Opera 9.2 and FireFox 2. I was using Firefox 3 and it was working alright, other than the fact that I suck at Defender.

I was trying the site out in Firefox 3 on Ubuntu and it appeared to run fine. I also tried it on Firefox 2 on a Windows XP machine and it was pretty much identical. I could only ever play in the favicon. The instructions say that if you press Enter it should open in a canvas display but I could not get that to work on either machine.

Here is a short video of me trying to play Defender of the Favicon. Not easy to do but it is a creative use of the space. Perhaps a different game would be eaiser to play as a favicon. Pac-Man comes to mind or even Asteroids maybe.

This is a unique approach to creating a favicon and deserves to be recognized this week as the favicon of the week!

Yesterday I talked about how Hotels.com did not even bother trying to create a favicon for their website, which is a real shame. While I was doing research for hotels for my holiday I also spent time on Expedia.ca. They have a nice site and they have a great little favicon for their site. I can always find their site fast in my bookmarks because of that little airplane favicon.

That is a great favicon that matches their logo and branding on their website and t makes it easy for me to find their bookmark when I am looking for them. Good job Expedia.ca on an easy to recognize favicon!

You might have noticed there have been no posts for a week or so. I was on a well deserved holiday. I had someone checking in on the site here but I did not get around to writing any posts to publish while I was away. Life just got to busy with holiday plans and booking hotels and packing. you know how it is I am sure. In making my travel plans I spent a lot of time using my favorite site for doing research on hotels, aptly named Hotels.com.

They recently did some work to their website and changed their logo and some of the colors. The site looks good but I was surprised that they have not taken the time to create a favicon. You would think that someone in their branding department would have thought of that little detail. Apparently not. I like the new logo and they have a great little icon around the “o” that looks to me like an elevator button. I thought it would make a great little favicon for their website.

Here is what I thought they could use as their favicon. It draws on their great new logo and fits the new design they have created for their site. Another idea I had was to use just the “h” with the background color but I never did anything with that idea.

What do you think? Do you think Hotels.com could use a favicon on their website?

I was going to post a tutorial today about how to add your own favicon to a WordPress.com blog, but I was not quite done it when I saw this great post over at Smashing Magazine today. Favicon Episode 7 highlights some great examples of favicons that you can find on the Internet. If you are looking for some inspiration for your favicon you will certainly find some there to help you create your own for your website or blog. Of course once you design your favicon in your favorite graphic editor you can come here to Free Favicon to generate the ico file (hint hint). Don’t forget to check out some of the other posts they have on favicons as well. They have lots to inspire you!