Clicking on the old Firefox icon…

As of March 2007, that’s how one in four of us enter the Web. So what does that little Firefox icon mean to us? Well. It can mean anything:

• Surfing
• Shopping
• Music
• Emails
• Research
• Chatting
• Work…

It’s our gateway into the world’s collaborative fairground of cyber delights – our friend the internet. So as an icon, it’s absolutely loaded with layers of imagery and meaning.

What emotions can it trigger? Sometimes it symbolises fun, after a hard day’s graft or, like Solitaire, a guilty pleasure, grabbed when we should be working. Combined with mild addiction, (in my case an obsession with my website statistics) it’ll trigger a buzz, a little rush of endorphins. Who’s been watching my site? How many pictures have I sold today?

Of course, that can also turn into disappointment – why haven’t they replied yet? Why is my site down? Why’s it going so slow?

What it means to you, however, is an entirely different kettle of javascript variables.

But there’s no denying it… Just a handful of pixels and yet so many possibilities. Icons are perhaps one of the most potent forms of imagery of our time.