Version 1
I use Zoom a lot at work and don’t always want my video on. I also don’t want a huge photo of myself to show up when I talk either. So, I deleted my profile photo from my Google acount, which is synced with Zoom. That way it just showed my first initial on a colorful background, which was automatically selected by Google. A pink background. Now, it’s not that I have anything wrong with the color pink, but I just didn’t want it to take up the full screen if I start to talk without turning on my video.
So, a few years ago, I created the Google Profile Icon Generator, written in HTML, JS and CSS, to generate a profile icon that matches Google’s defualt style (font, size and colors) so that I could choose my own color for my profile “picture”.
Feedback
Since then, it has quite accidentally risen in search rankings and is the most popular page on my website. By far. I have received some great feedback as well - thanks!
New Features
I recently published version 2.0 with the most requested features, making the web app more flexible, while retaining the 100% client-side code, which is secure by nature.
Animal Icons: Google’s classic “anonymous animal” icons (from Google Drive) are now available for profile icons.
Multiple Letters: Two letters are now supported in icons. To select a second letter, hold down CMD (macOS) or CTRL (Windows) while selecting another letter.
Custom Color: You can now select a custom background color for your icon. Click on the multi-color circle at the end of the color options and enter a six-digit hex code when prompted.
URL Parameters: Your selections are saved in the URL parameters so that you can easily send the link to someone else with your selections in tact.
Future work
The project is not on GitHub where I welcome pull requests.
I am always open to new ideas, please feel free to reach out at iconmaker at kevinguay.com.