the.com/icon
A picture so famous you stopped seeing it and started believing it.
means A symbol, image, or person regarded as a representative emblem of something—or, in computing, a tiny clickable picture that stands for a program or file.
from From Greek 'eikon,' meaning likeness or image, which passed through Late Latin 'icon.' For centuries it named the sacred painted images of Orthodox Christianity—Christ, the saints, the Virgin—venerated on wooden panels. The religious sense bled outward into 'anything held up as a revered representation,' and in the 20th century computing borrowed it once more for the little pictures on a screen.
- origin
- From Greek eikon, simply meaning image or likeness
- holy pixels
- Orthodox icons are venerated, not worshipped, theologians insist
- desktop birth
- Xerox popularized clickable icons in the 1970s
- tiny tyrant
- Favicon shrinks your whole brand to sixteen pixels
- status creep
- Now any vaguely famous person qualifies, apparently
mona lisa — da vinci's 1503 painting, most recognizable artwork in the world
apple logo — bitten apple designed in 1977, worth billions in brand recognition
elvis presley — the king of rock and roll, defined an entire cultural era in the 1950s
marilyn monroe — platinum blonde symbol of 1950s hollywood glamour and stardom