Tag Archives: tips

Learning the hard way !

I was going through some of my graphics folders and came across some really great designs that I wanted to use for other things. These were projects I started when I first started learning graphics that came out really good. In order to save hard drive space once a project is completed I would save it as a jpg file, or gif file instead of say an xcf file for Gimp or a psd file for Photoshop.

Yup, it does save some hard drive space. The only problem is when you want to use those designs for other projects they pretty much become useless. I would strongly suggest to anyone just starting out, save your work in a project file. Use xcf, psd, or whatever your program saves them as so you can edit them in the future.

Sometimes you may want just a piece of clipart from the project. Maybe a background came out just right and would make a nice tile. You get the point. Saving your work in a project file makes all these options available to you. Note to self and anyone else just learning: Save project files in editable format !

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A design I wanted to use for something else. It would of been nice to easily remove this background and use for another project. Now I’ll have to recreate the entire design. Save your work in an editable project file so this doesn’t happen to you .

New Twitter Header Dimensions

Twitter now gives you a 1500 x 500 px header image for your profile page. The new look of twitter is great and that’s a lot of real estate to fill. I decided to play around with it a bit and here’s what I discovered.

Going to the twitter help page https://support.twitter.com/articles/127871-customizing-your-profile# They give you the suggested dimensions for the new header of 1500 x 500 px. I used Gimp 2.8 and opened up a new image, 1500 width by 500 height. I added my spacey background, and then opened up some of my old header xcf files from Facebook and G+ and copied and pasted together a quick header image. I added the alien from some clipart, and copied and pasted the rest of the design from some other headers I created for the New Aeon Design. The whole project took about a half an hour.

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The new header 1500 X 500 px shown in open browser. This was just a quick experiment. I would suggest adding some business keywords, url, and company logo. Keep it simple.

Once the file was completed I saved it as a png file and uploaded it to twitter. The first thing I discovered about the suggested 1500 x 500 px is that there is about a 50 px border from the top edge and along the bottom edge that will cut out on you. So I had to move the url found on the upper left hand corner of the image down about 50 px. I also moved all the images and graphics along the bottom edge up 50 px. This took care of the problem and when the browser window is resized it still shows all the graphics. However, when I redo this I will probably add another 10 px border for browser resizing. When the browser is resized I noticed that a very tiny amount of the lettering got cut off. Nothing major, and everything was still readable.

Now I tried to get creative and put a little u.f.o. with a light shining over my twitter avatar. I really liked the way this looked when the browser is set to full screen, however when the browser is resized the avatar doesn’t scale with the header image and off sets the u.f.o. I’m leaving it for now, but this has to be changed down the road.

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Notice that when the browser window is resized the twitter avatar doesn’t scale with header image. This offset the U.F.O just enough to be annoying and unprofessional. When I update this header, that will have to be changed.

Outside of the avatar issue, the new header dimensions are great. That’s a lot of real estate to fill with information about your company, brand, or product. When creating your header I would suggest adding your url to the design, a couple keywords about what your company does, like “Web Design”, or “Wholesaler of World Class Widgets”, your logo and business name. Keep it clean and simple. In the world of headers less is sometimes more ! If anyone wants a header designed for their business message me on twitter with what you want, and I’ll shoot you a quick price. Most designs start around $40.00 bucks.

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The header as it was designed. Notice the 50 px border along the sides. If you don’t move everything in about 50px you will have parts of the image cut out when you upload the final product.

Hope these tips help, and happy tweeting everyone ! If you have any further suggestions please comment, and if you’re on twitter folllow me and I’ll probably follow back .