They look sharper when scaled or magnified, such as when you zoom in on Google Maps. Vector graphics store their image data as a series of coordinates connected by a series of lines to render an image.

Unlike GIMP, however, which is a raster graphics editor, Inkscape is what is called a vector graphics editor. Like GIMP, Inkscape is an open source application that gives proprietary alternatives like Illustrator a serious run for their money. That is how I ended up using Inkscape instead. Upon further research, it became evident that this was more due to my not understanding what GIMP is really for rather than any inherent limitation in the application itself 1. My first attempt was to use GIMP but the resulting icon, which I essentially 'painted' in manually on a 16 by 16 pixel canvas, left much to be desired, even though I was just trying to draw the letter 'S'. There are many sites that allow you to create a favicon online (just search for 'favicon generator') but I wanted to see if I could create one myself, locally on my machine. While not technically required, I think it's a nice touch that allows you to set your site apart and lets it stand out amongst the many URLs that I have bookmarked.

When creating my website, I wanted to include a favicon which would appear in my browser's tab.

Make icon for inkscape mac os x