Tuesday, January 25, 2011

BACKGROUND CHECK . . . Are You Ready for the New Twitter?


What is Twitter and why does it keep following me around?

The New Twitter . . .
What It Means for Your Custom Background


This past Fall Twitter announced the launch of a completely new design, and it won't be long before there will no longer be an option to use or access the old Twitter. 

What I want to focus on is how that new layout affects all the cool custom backgrounds many of you have. The truth is it’s going to mess them up when viewed on small to medium sized monitors. Why? Because the new Twitter is considerably wider and that means the sides (where the background shows) are narrower.

This is what my old background on the old Twitter looked like -



Now here’s a screen shot of how it looked on the new Twitter.  As I mentioned, on larger monitors the background would still look fine because there would be more space on each side.




With the new design, Twitter backgrounds have much less space. Twitter used to give us a lot of space to the left and right of the profiles to show off branding and creativity, but while there are many benefits to the New Twitter, background images are mostly hidden.

So if you already put in the time & effort to brand your Twitter profile to match your website and/or Blog, it's definitely time to take a hard look at how the narrow space now available for that purpose looks with that background!


                                                                               

There are a few points you need to keep in mind when designing or altering your Twitter background to fit into the new site:

1)  The new Twitter utilizes a fluid layout, meaning that the browser window or screen resolution can impact the width of some of the columns, as well as how much of the background image is visible.

2)  Know Your Space Limitations: Use between 41 – 108px for the left side’s “Content Area” of your Twitter Profile Background.

3)  Always Visible: 41px will always show on each side no matter what size the monitor.

     * 70%  of Modern Computers: 108px on each side
        (Requires about 1280x800px Screen Resolution or Higher)

     *  27% of Modern Computers: 200px on each side
        (Requires 1440x900px Screen Resolution or Higher)

     *  3% of Modern Computers: 312px on each side
        (Requires 1920×1080 Screen Resolution)


While there are many twitter users that will be able to easily change their background to fit the new twitter format, there are many who will not . . .  

Use a Built-in Twitter Theme Tool

The excellent Themeleon tool from COLOURlovers has been updated for the new Twitter. You can access the tool by either going directly to the site or by selecting Themeleon from the sidebar in the Design section of the Twitter settings page.

You can login to Twitter in the app and customize your colors and backgrounds. The great thing about the tool is that until you hit “save,” none of the changes take effect. Think of this as a great way to test out color combinations and various motifs.


COLOURlovers Themeleon Tool


A good Twitter background using your branding makes your Twitter profile look professional and shows that you care about the small details!  Not only that, why would you want to miss out on any chance you have to help build your brand identity?

jQ jewelry designs






22 comments:

Sea Flower Studios said...

I didn't know twitter was changing! Thanks for the heads up and the great info!

Giftbearer said...

Wow! I never even knew I could add things to my background!Interesting.

It's a little early in the morning for all this technical stuff. I'll have to look into it further when I've had some sleep.

Dee said...

This was an awesome tutorial, thanks!

Unknown said...

GREAT information Jill! I had no idea that backgrounds could look so good - mine's still just plain....may have to change that though!

bountyofbeads said...

This is a fantastic read, I had no idea about all of this. Thank you so much for sharing.

Sewinggranny - Mona said...

Oh my, I do not do well with twitter, will come back and read this tutorial again when I am working on my twitter page! Thanks

Lbtoyos said...

I´m relatively new at twitter and I haven´t take a look at change background yet, I have to investigate how to do that, too english in my internet life!!!
Thanks for all this information.

CalliopeCreations said...

Wow! I've not done much with my twitter but may start thinking about it. Thanks for all the terrific information. Great tutorial.

Linda B said...

JQ, since I use Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, I haven't considered my Twitter background for a while. Thanks for the update and detailed measurement information.

Toddle Tags said...

Great information, thank you!

KrystalsJewelry said...

wow... definitely heads up!!! Thanks for the info!!

Unknown said...

Great post!!! I am sure most people have not thought of this so it was wonderful for you to point this out!!

Enid said...

Great, great info!

Thanks!

Marcene said...

wow, thanks for the info

teener1416 said...

wow i had no idea you could do all that on twitter! I'm bookmarking this for the weekend and I'm gonig to try it out!!!

asdesigns said...

ah! I feel like your speaking another language. I'm so bad with computer things. Lol I just picked a background twitter had.

Elizabeth said...

Wow, kinda makes me glad I dont twitter. That seems like a lot of change to take in. And as I love my branding I would be ticked!!

Crystal said...

Interesting. Thanks for the info!

Denise Therese said...

Wow, thanks for that info! I had no idea the New Twitter would be so different.

petitehermine said...

Hmm.. very interesting. Thank you for sharing such in depth information!

Anonymous said...

good post- I need to think about my background! thanks for the info :0)

Kim AKA RabbitDogPrints said...

Thanks for this informative post. I knew twitter was changing, but wasn't sure how or how to make it work for me. thanks to you, now I know.

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...