How to Easily Create a Custom Twitter Background and Getting the Right Twitter Background Size

Just like anything in life, it's important to put something personal into your Twitter page and the only way that you can truly do that is by learning how to create a Twitter background free, and that is what we're going to talk to you about in this article. If you plan to make money from your Twitter account, or even if you're not, it's important to give a good first impression for people to take you seriously and to even listen to you, this is why we have written this article for you today.

When I create my Twitter backgrounds for any number of the Twitter accounts that we maintain and look after, we want to put something behind the scenes that's unlike what anyone else has and something that has impact and that's what your background should do too. For our Twitter background we use Photoshop, but this can done in any image editing software available today, even Microsoft Paint!

Here is a short list of things that you need to consider when you are setting up your Twitter background image:

·         Different monitor sizes - People are different and people have different screen sizes!

·         Document size - It is important your background doesn't take too long to load!

·         The Twitter interface - Don't let your beautiful background fall behind!

·         The impression your background gives - It needs to reflect you and what you want to give to your followers!

·         Avatar matching - Does the background suit your avatar?

We're going to go through each of those categories for you now so don't worry, we're with you every step of the way as we help you to create your perfect twitter background for free!

Different Monitor sizes:

This is important as people do have vastly different monitor sizes. The monitor that I am writing this article on is nearly 2000 pixels wide and nearly 1500 pixels high, so it's much better to go bigger than be too small! There are also people who still have tiny 800 pixels x 600 pixels screens, but when it comes to Twitter there isn't a lot that you can do about that as the main Twitter interface takes up basically every last one of those 800 pixels wide. So you should consider the standard to be a screen size of 1024 x 768 pixels. I would say that is an average size as of this moment.

Document size:

You don't want your image to be really big in document size as it will take a long time for some connections to load when they hit your page and if it's too big Twitter might even reject it as they have a limit on image size. I'll go more into image and document sizing in a short while.

Twitter interface:

The Twitter interface is your whole area where you see everyone's tweets and your own information down the left-hand-side and when you create your background, you don't want important parts of your background image to be obscured by that. Again, we'll delve a little closer to this in the tutorial.

The impression your background gives:

Do you want your background to be dark or light? Detailed or simple? When you create a Twitter background these are things you have to think about because you don't want things to get too complicated back there. Think about what you like, what you want your followers to think and most importantly, what you want to portray your profile as.

Avatar matching:

This isn't a cast-iron rule in my book, but I think that it's pretty important that you don't have a black and white photo of yourself on a 1980's neon background, know what I mean? Consider this when you create your background. Have fun with it!

So those are the main aspects to consider when it comes to creating your Twitter background. So let's move on to the production of it.

Choose your color / image / pattern for your custom Twitter background:

Set your heart on a color, image or pattern and we'll start creating a Twitter background from it. This isn't going to be as hard as you think it is, we promise. Keeping in mind what we talked about earlier with monitor sizing, start off by creating a document that is 2000 pixels wide by 1000 pixels high. This way it will fit on the biggest screen, right down to the smallest. Only a vast minority have screens bigger than this. Now place your image / color / pattern onto the canvas. If you're using an image and it's not big enough, don't panic, don't try to stretch it, leave it at the size that it's currently at and make the rest of the background the same color as the edge of the image, this way it will at least look consistent around it.

Now keeping in mind what we said about the Twitter interface you should place the image in a place where it will not be overshadowed by the interface, and a good suggestion is always the top right hand corner. Place it right into the top right corner and don't worry that the Twitter interface will go over it. The Twitter interface always hangs around in the middle of the screen no matter what your screen size is so as long as your image is off to the side, it will be fine. We were working from on the basis that this is to apply to a screen size of a minimum of 1024x768, so we need to take that into account, so make sure that your image is no more than 180 pixels wide if you're using a simple image or a logo and keep it around 30 pixels from the edge of your canvas on the top and the bottom. This way it will fit nicely into the corner and it won't be overlaid by the Twitter interface. But experiment with it, don't be worried about having to come up with a great background the first time around.

Saving and uploading your custom Twitter background:

Once you have a background that you think will look great, save it to your computer and if asked for the quality that you would like it to be, play with the different qualities. Try saving the image fairly low initially but then if you're not happy with that, save it again on a higher level. Remember we're just trying to keep the image size low so Twitter will accept the image and your page will load quickly to visitors. Once you're done, go to Twitter and log in to your account. Then click the 'Settings' tab in the top right corner. When presented with the settings menu, click on the 'Design' tab. It will show you Twitter's normal background themes that pretty much everyone else is using(but not you, not anymore!).

Underneath all those is a button which is called 'Change background image' which you should click. Not click the 'Choose file' button which appears and locate the file that you have created and saved onto your computer and click 'Save Changes' on the Twitter page. You will now see your background on your profile. If you're happy with it, you're done! If not, then go back into your software and experiment a little more with it. Have fun with it! If you are using a pattern here, then do the same thing but set your image to 'tile background' before clicking 'save changes' in Twitter. This means that the background will be repeated over the screen, however we don't recommend this for images. If you're not happy with how the pattern looks, take it back into your image editing software and play with it, cut parts from it...have fun until it's right!

Ok, we hope we've helped you with this and remember the key elements:

·         Make the Twitter background size 2000 x 1500 pixels

·         Let it reflect who you are

·         Let it give people an impression

·         Keep it similar to your avatar - it gives you an even bigger professional impression!

If this is still all a little confusing for you, visit our site to see a two-part video tutorial by clicking the following link and you'll be able to create a Twitter background [http://www.twittwittwitter.com/create-a-custom-free-twitter-background-tutorial/] in no time! There's also more details about the Twitter background size [http://www.twittwittwitter.com/create-a-custom-free-twitter-background-tutorial/] in the videos too as well as yet more useful information on Twitter backgrounds, advice on color and why custom Twitter backgrounds are important. Enjoy, and we hope we've helped you today!