Which of these icons will appear on every research post we make?

I would vote for the icon with the blue people. The five on the right are too busy. They look more like ads than an icon. The magnifying glass is already overused (used to zoom in / edit). The scale is used for justice not peer review. The circles with the arch is weird and meaningless. The check-mark on the paper is the runner up but the green check is hardly visible.

BTW great blog! Keep up the excellent work!

"The circles with the arch is weird and meaningless."

Nope, I got it right away: it's an eye looking you in the eye ( eye-to-eye = face-to-face = peer (re)view ). At the same time it's reminiscent of the "podcasting" icon with the concentric circles/arches. So that one's got my vote--I love it! You can explain it later if folks need that.

By definition, the "magnifying glass podcast" pic is the only other image there that could actually be considered "iconic." Everything else is just too busy (as in web graphics, circa 1997).

The one on the upper-left (paper with checkmark) best conveys the idea "about an approved (by peer review) paper". The little blue square (magnifying glass with emitted waves) is a better icon but without an obvious meaning. The rest are neither iconic nor able to convey much of an idea of what they're about. I think magnifying glass (= scrutinized) and emitted waves (= disseminating information ~ blogging) makes enough sense (even if it's not immediately obvious) to favor the little blue guy.

I don't think the magnifying glass is a good idea: it has already been appropriated and as an icon it has a clear, specific meaning: SEARCH.

Look on your own side-bar - right a bit....up a bit... there it is.... SEARCH

Look at the ie toolbar.... up a bit up a bit... there it is, right: SEARCH

You aren't building a search tool, so the glass would be confusing.

Clicking on the link to see each one of them in four different sizes dramatically changed my choices compared to just looking at them here. I'll have to think deeply....

The glass and the waves, because it looks like it belongs to the same family as the RSS orange icon thingy. The rest are too busy, like logos for some start-up design consultancy business.

Roeland Hancock's

I would vote for Eric L's icon.

I'm torn between the one with the beaker and the small purple square that resembles the orange RSS buttons.

I like the two middle ones on the top.

My choices would be between Nojhan and Uriel Klieger's icons. It really depends on where this icon will be placed on the post.

In general, it is good to have truly iconic representations - esp if you want to consider localized content. Magnifying glass has its own purpose - search. So that leaves, 2 eye-on-eye icons. The first one is the clearer and that is my choice.

If I expected this logo to become as widespread as, say, the RSS logo, then my reasoning would be different. But instead, I expect the vast majority of people the icon is target at to be occasional readers who only encounter it rarely. They're also the most important target audience: the goal (I think) is to distinguish reviews of real peer-reviewed research from a typical blog entry (the former usually being a better source of reliable information). So I'd like a logo that is meaningful not just to frequent users (who probably don't need it anyway) but also to occasional users. That leads me to prefer Matthew's contributions... particularly the words-over-green-beaker one, even though it is overly "busy".

Michael Chermside (comment 13) hit the nail right on the head, as I am an occasional user, and I recognize the logo simply because it is spelled out to me.

And it is this type of page that I am interested in(valid peer to peer research).