Durham, NC - Duke University has a new icon to represent it online.

The image based on Duke Chapel's spires will appear in the address bar of online browsers, just to the left of a Duke page's URL, or web address. It also will appear if visitors include the page in their list of bookmarks.

Tam Ferguson, a web producer in Duke's Office of News and Communications, based the icon on one of the university's most iconic images: the magnificent neo-Gothic structure at the heart of campus.

Called a "favicon" -- web shorthand for "favorites icon" -- the new web image is a square measuring only 16 x 16 pixels in size.

Ferguson also designed several other possible versions, three of which are shown above. A team of Duke communications officials selected the version with the Chapel spires, considering it the most distinctive and appropriate.

"It's an evocative image that conveys a lot of meaning in a tiny amount of space," said Denise Haviland, who oversees the university's brand within the Office of Public Affairs and Government Relations. "We're offering it to any Duke site that wants it, although we know some schools and units may prefer to keep using their own favicons."