I ran into Network World a while ago linked from some article I was reading and was taken by the site’s favicon. It’s almost a direct copy of del.icio.us’s:
The colors and layout are all but identical. The only difference is the orientation of the black and blue portions. I can’t decide whether or not it’s possible that it’s a coincidence.
A part of me wonders if it’s even post-worthy. Favicons serve a distinct purpose in making sites more recognizable and it seems someone designing a tech-oriented site (with a digg widget on the front page) would know about del.icio.us.
Is it reasonable to speculate on favicon plagiarism?
Jonathan Bailey said,
March 18, 2008 @ 6:30 am
I hate to say it, but I don’t really see it in this case. Yes, the colors are very close (the NW one does not have the gray) and there is some similarity in orientation, but a favicon leaves very little room for creativity. If NW had been using those colors on their own, which appears to be the case, I suspect they just did what they could with their Favicon and didn’t even expect it to mirror any one else.
I’m sure there are dozens of Favicons similar to my own that I don’t even know about. I just did it because it matched my logo.
I’m the first to jump on anyone for plagiarism, but when it comes to favicons, there is a strong likelihood of independent discovery. It’s just such a small palette.