January 25, 2010

If your business maintains a presence on Twitter, chances are you have a logo or other branding in your profile picture. You can take this one step further by creating a custom background for your Twitter page that expresses more about your business identity.

Twitter allows you to upload any image as your profile background, but in order to use this feature effectively you need to know a bit about how Twitter lays out its page, and where you should include your design elements.

Hiring a professional graphic designer is always the best route to go if you want your profile to look clean, original, and eye-catching.  But if that's not in your budget, or you're into do-it-yourself design, here are some tips.

Use an Image Editor

To create your background, you'll need an image editor, preferably one with layering and compositing tools.  Photoshop is best suited for the task, but there are a few comparable online (and free) alternatives.

Gimp is a free, open-source image editing and compositing tool that has many of Photoshop's abilities and filters. Aviary's Phoenix is another great free tool that is entirely web based.  You can edit and layer images in a Photoshop-like environment right in your web browser and save the results to your desktop. Photoshop.com also offers a free, “light,” web-based version of the popular software.

Lay Out Your Background

Once you've chosen your tools and have your ideas, take a moment to understand how a Twitter profile page is formatted and build your design from there.

Page Dimensions:  Twitter houses its content in a 760 pixel column in the center of the page.  This element remains constant for anyone viewing your profile on the web.  The amount of space left for the background will depend on the resolution of the monitor on which it is being viewed.

To ensure that your background image will not be cut off or overlapped by Twitter's content column at varied resolutions, use a large image size for your background.  A safe bet is 1680 x 1200 pixels.

Maximum File Size: 800 KB JPEG, GIF, or PNG

Layout: When designing your background, leave about 65 pixels at the top of your image for the Twitter logo, and utilize a width of about 200 pixels at the left for your key design elements (logos, text, etc.).

It's important to note that Twitter will align the background image to the top-left of the page, so focus your main content there and place it as far to the left as possible.  This will ensure that viewers at lower resolutions won't lose half of your logo behind the content column.

There are a few tools that can help you determine what your layout will look like at different resolutions. To quickly determine your own resolutions as a reference point, check out whatismyscreenresolution.com. FireFox users can install the Web Developer add-on which will resize your browser at common resolutions.  You can simulate how others may be viewing your page. Screen-resolution.com is also a handy tool for popping URLs into resolution-specific browser windows.

Add your background to Twitter by logging into your account on the web and clicking Settings > Design > Change Background Image, and then browsing for your file.  Once you upload, you can see your design in action and get a sense of any layout changes you may need to make.

Also, be sure to choose text and link colors that compliment your background.

Design Tip: Don’t clutter your background with too much information. Because URLs are not clickable in a background, this space is best suited for logos, photos, or other clean graphic elements that express what your business is all about.

Have you designed your own Twitter background? Tell us more about your experience and share a link to your profile in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto,OnyxRain  

Join the conversation ( 3 )

• John Richardson 1 year 10 months and 13 days ago

  

  You can also use Powerpoint to create an awesome twitter background in just a few minutes. I have a tutorial on my blog at http://bit.ly/9XdUCh which will guide you step-by-step. Have fun!

• Mary Fletcher Jones 2 years 0 months and 7 days ago

  

  Thank you for this helpful article! I like to think of designs for custom Twitter backgrounds that convey personality and brand as much as practical info., such as phone numbers or email addresses. For example, for one of our clients, we designed http://twitter.com/FallProperties. I wanted the custom Twitter background to look like a desk where a prospective homeowner had just dumped their purse/wallet and was preparing to call the realtors.

• Andrew Ensminger 2 years 0 months and 14 days ago

  

  Custom Twitter backgrounds really help set your account apart from the monotonous, standard account backgrounds. They're an easy way to catch a customers eye in a crowded social media environment. Check out ours: www.twitter.com/cotaoil