It is something that i have been meaning to work on for some time now, that is a new background for my Twitter profile. If you have not seen it before, i am on Twitter, you can reach me via @no_fixed_office, follow me if you like.
The background that i was using, was a very basic on that i put together just to cover until i had more time. The fact was that it actually didn’t take me to long to put together anyway, so i do not know why i put it off for so long. However i did have some help from two sources, which i want to share and acknowledge.
The first step i took was to work out the background, being the primary element it was an important step, and i had to take the time to find the right tutorial. What i found was a Tutorial named Signature Backgrounds at Visualdesigncore.com. It caught my eye straight away, and while i went through it a few times to get the idea down in my own mind, it is a very good tutorial and easy to follow.
The second step was getting the placement right. If you have tried to get a background done for twitter then you may be aware of the trying to work the elements to fit the screen and not get get covered. For this i got the Free PSD Twitter Background Template from Fuel Your Creativity. This template is great for fitting your background to the correct screen resolution, and is marked for the most common resolutions from 800px x 600px up to 2560px x 1600px.
Putting it all together was still slightly guesswork, not so much in laying it out, but in working to what may be the most common screen sizes. So since i have a laptop with wide screen, at 1280 x 800 and guess that this may be fairly common laptop screen resolution, i have gone with this. So for me it appears to be fitting perfectly on the screen, however i do expect that a few people may lose little off the bottom of the screen if they have a lower resolution. (eg 1024px x 768px). The other thing i stuck to was fitting the sidebar into no more 200px from the left. This was suggested on the background template i used, and i think should work with most screen resolutions.
Anyway please do take a look http://www.twitter.com/no_fixed_office and comment with your thoughts, I do look forward to hearing them.
***UPDATE***
After putting the background online and asking for reactions i have made two small changes. Both at the suggestion of @leeward2009. The first was to make the profile standout more, on the left. What i did to fix this up was to darken the background from 55% transpancy to about 75%, it keeps the transparent effect but appears a little more solid. Secondly was to move it up. I had initally aligned it with the top of the main twitter feed, however did end up moving it up almost to the top of the page. Hopefully this eliminate any potential problems with small resolutions not seeing all the text.