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The new favicon for Meta Stack Exchange looks exactly the same as the one for the Stack Exchange network site:

      Stack Exchange favicon

This can get a bit confusing, especially if you happen to have many tabs open from both sites. It also looks a bit silly in the site switcher menu:

Screenshot of site switcher menu

All the per-site metas (and MSO, even before the MSO/MSE split) have favicons that are grayscale versions of the main site icons. Why not do the same for MSE?

Conveniently, michaelb958 already wrote a nice user script to do just that (and I extended it to apply to the menu too), so you can easily see for yourself how it would look. Or just see the screenshot below:

MSE site switcher menu with grayscale icon

So here's my proposal: Let's make this gray icon the official MSE favicon.

Update: The meta.SE favicon has recently been changed to a simplified outline version of the SE logo:

Screenshot of new meta.SE logo

I'm not sure how much I like the new logo (for one thing, it doesn't seem to match the dimensions of the main SE logo), but at least it's different, which was the main point of this request.

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9
  • Ah, the question I forgot to write... Have my upvote, sir.
    – michaelb958--GoFundMonica
    Commented Apr 20, 2014 at 10:36
  • But it is not a regular meta site; it is the Meta meta site. It's the only one allowed to have colour.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Apr 20, 2014 at 10:39
  • 4
    @MartijnPieters: We could always make it rainbow-coloured, if you'd prefer. I'd be fine with that, as long as it was somehow distinct from the main stackexchange.com icon.
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Commented Apr 20, 2014 at 10:42
  • @MartijnPieters: In fact, I just mocked up a rainbow SE favicon. Enjoy!
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Commented Apr 20, 2014 at 10:52
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    @MartijnPieters: It's the Meta site for Stack Exchange. Doesn't matter that Stack Exchange is not a Q&A.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Apr 26, 2014 at 17:57
  • Nice, missed this one! I consider closing my request as dupe of yours.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 22:56
  • The new hollow better represents the "openness" of how Meta rules conformity
    – random
    Commented Jun 27, 2014 at 4:46
  • The hollow one is mostly fine by me, but it looks terrible on dark browsers (mostly because of the white pixels) as I already mentioned in a duplicate post.
    – Once Upon a Dev
    Commented Jun 27, 2014 at 13:41
  • @3ventic: Those white pixels are definitely a bug. Reported.
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Commented Jun 27, 2014 at 14:18

2 Answers 2

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4

I marked this , even though it's partially completed. Like you said, the main goal was to differentiate the MSE favicon from the se.com favicon, and we've done that.

Since other people have asked for it to be grayscale, I'll just leave this here: we considered that, but decided against it because it doesn't make any sense to have a grayscale favicon for a page whose theme is blue and white, not grayscale.

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  • 2
    meta theme should be bloody red not blue :)
    – gnat
    Commented Jun 27, 2014 at 15:58
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    So just an empty square? Sorry but it's just a bad choice in my opinion.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 27, 2014 at 22:17
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    it's a speech bubble...with nothing to say :(
    – mhlester
    Commented Jun 27, 2014 at 22:18
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    The other answer contains something much better, it keeps the colors and not empty - is it being considered?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 27, 2014 at 22:19
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I have a slightly different proposal. I kind of like the idea of a grayscale icon for Meta Stack Exchange, to be consistent with other child meta sites, but the problem with this:

Grayscale icon

is that it doesn't match the logo on Meta Stack Exchange

Meta Stack Exchange logo

which is unpleasantly inconsistent at best, and just downright a little confusing at worst. Granted, the old icon didn't match the Meta SE logo either, it was sort of the inverse.

Alternative

I propose that the icon match the logo, i.e. a white balloon with horizontal blue stripes across:

Match logo icon

Mockup with new icon

This is with 2 horizontal bars instead of 3:

Mockup with less bars

So something like the above, except nicer looking (I'm not a designer with 1337 Photoshop skills).

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1
  • I'm actually totally okay with the new fav icon now...so never mind.
    – user163250
    Commented Aug 4, 2014 at 15:43

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