Recently I've been making a bigger effort at being an active member of Twitter. Doing so made me realize that I wanted a cute, memorable icon as my profile picture. I wanted people to see me, as well as get an idea of what my focus is on Twitter (which lately has been photography).
Step One: Create the canvas
You have 73x73 pixels to work with. Using Photoshop (or whatever image editor you use that can save transparent PNGs), create a new document 73x73 at 72DPI.
This is what 73x73 pixels looks like:
Step Two: Choose your elements
Since I wanted to show both my niche (photography) and myself, I decided to look for some icons to work with. I found the icons I wanted in the free "Function Icon Set" package.
These are the items I chose to work with for my picture:
1. The first image is the picture I decided on for now as my "real" photo.
2. The second image is the camera icon I decided on.
3. The third image is what I will use as a frame to insert actual tiny photos into as "examples" of my work.
Think this is pretty ambitious? With a little creative sizing and positioning, we can turn all of this into a successful icon.
The next steps will show you the process I followed to create my icon. By using similar techniques and principles, you too can create a unique Twitter profile picture that will stand out to potential followers!
Step Three: Putting it together
First things first. I took my image and cropped it with rounded corners, and rotated it to a slight angle to add some flair. You can also see that I've placed it off to the left to make some room for my icons to fit.
Next, I added a simple white border, and added a drop shadow.
I made two of the "picture" icons and placed them at angles, very small, behind my main image. I put the camera in the front right corner.
By adding a small flash around the camera, and placing some of my own images inside the frames, I have my finished product:
Note that I saved the final image as a transparent PNG. This allows it to look good no matter what color background it is sitting on.
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