The New Twitter 2.0 layout is still in beta and rolling out to it’s 75 million+ users but for those who already have gotten to see it will have noticed that it is completely new and better. What isn’t so great is the amount of space now left to brand your organization’s profile.

Most twitter backgrounds are designed to look great at a 1280 x 800 resolution, the example below shows how much room was available to be creative, add links and any images to ones background. As you can see from this example there was a good amount of space to make a good first impression.

Now look at the same profile with the new Twitter layout at the same resolution. Right away you will notice that the main twitter feed area is a bit smaller but the sidebar is larger which creates a problem with the amount of space left outside the margins.

The most common screen resolution at the moment is 1024×768 though as screen gets cheaper and cheaper larger resolutions are becoming more popular. Below is a breakdown of the amount of space available out side the margins of the new layout for the more common screen resolutions.

1024x768px = 41px on each side
1280x800px = 104px on each side
1440x900px = 200px on each side
1920×1080px = 312px on each side

So What to Do?

Though the amount of space in the sides is significantly less it is still possible to adequately brand your organization. Here are a few tips to follow:

• Be consistent and use your organizations color scheme and logo in your background and profile picture.
• Use less text as it is more likely to get cut off.
• The new Twitter profile includes a larger area for your picture, bio and link so take advantage of these changes.
• The new sidebar is about at 75% opacity which makes it slightly transparent, this allows the ability to place images or information and be creative with your design.

Some examples of designing for the new Twitter layout can be seen here, here and our profile here.

Though we as artist have less space on our canvas we can still pull together a work of art that will effectively brand our Twitter image. Stay consistent and continue to build your online presence.

Does your organization have a twitter profile and custom background? What are your thoughts on redoing your background? Have you changed it already? We’d love to hear your thoughts on having to change and branding yourself on twitter.