Everything You Need to Know About the New Twitter Branding Capabilities

A couple of days ago Twitter rolled out several new changes that will make branding your Twitter page easier and more fun. Following the lead of major social networks such as Facebook and Google+, Twitter has implemented some great new options that allow for more branding opportunities.

Header Images

The largest change is the addition of Header images. These header images are pretty similar to what you can do on Facebook and Google+. The only real difference is that your profile picture and profile description are moved from the left column to inside the Header image.

The same fun and interesting tricks that we can do with Facebook and Google+ Covers can be done with Twitter Header images: Continuous images using the profile picture and Header image, integrating your company’s branding, etc.

The most important thing to keep in mind when creating your Header is to be aware of the text in the Header image. Twitter automatically applies a dark gradient (where an image fades from one color to another) on the bottom half of your Header image, but sometimes even that won’t be enough to keep your text legible if the background is light-colored. And since Twitter DOES apply that dark gradient automatically, you’ll also want to keep that gradient in mind when designing your Header.

Header images should be, at a minimum, 520 x 260 pixels. Twitter’s recommended dimensions are 1200 x 600. Any other size in between that can be used, but you’ll want to keep the image at a 2:1 ratio.

To change your Header image, you’ll want to go to Settings (Under the gear in the top right) -> Design. Scroll down to the bottom, and you’ll find the options for the Header, Background, and a couple more new settings…

Centered Backgrounds

The Header image was not the only change that Twitter rolled out. Twitter backgrounds can now be centered on the page, rather than aligned to the top left of the screen. This allows you to include designs on the right side of the Twitter layout, as well as the left.

You can see on our Twitter page that now we have our logo on the left, and Pixel’s rocket ship on the right. We were also able to change the overlay surrounding our tweets from white to black. This is perfect for darker layouts.

Create Your Own

Want to create your own Twitter graphics? We’ve put together a couple of templates that you can use to do so! Included in the download is a Fireworks PNG and Photoshop PSD file for both the Header Template and Background+Header Template. Click Here to download the templates.

Enter To Win!

If you don’t have any graphics programs to make your own Twitter designs, let us do it for you! Although we do Twitter branding all the time, right now we are giving away a free Twitter Branding Package!

For the next week, we will collect comments on this blog, and when the clock strikes midnight on October 1st (or 2nd, depending on how you look at it!), we will pick a winner.

So what are you waiting for? Leave us a comment on what you think of these new Twitter changes, and you’ll be entered to win!