OK, first of all let's talk about that Twitter icon of yours. Twitter displays 150x150 pixel squares on the main timeline. You should be able to crop your image when you upload it, but if your image is nowhere close to a square it may become distorted.  Just to be safe, I recommend designing in a square if possible, around 300x300px. Uploading a larger picture is good in case someone clicks through to see a larger version of your image (you'd hate to disappoint them!). Here's a look at all the different sizes Twitter can display. One is my profile header pic; below it is the timeline pic; and to the right is the actual size of my picture if you click through.

The next step is designing your Twitter background. Many of you may not be aware that Twitter has revealed a complete redesign of their site. Lots of us use apps either on our phones or desktops and forget to ever check out the actual Twitter homepage. This new design means that lots of your backgrounds (mine included) now look pretty rough. 

No worries though, you just need a quick and effective redesign. There are several ways to do this, and not all of them require tedious Photoshop work. A good article that lists some of these Twitter design programs (as well as breaking down the design changes pixel for pixel) is HERE on mashable.com. NERD ALERT: this entire website, including this article, is very "techie" and if you aren't used to designing things for the web some of it may not make sense. Please ask me in the comments if you don't get what they're talking about, and I will do my best to put it in plain English.

If you are going to dive into a custom Photoshop-based design, I would highly recommend downloading the guidelines they've so graciously provided at the end of the article. The new fluid layout Twitter is using will make it difficult to effectively repeat a background, so here's a trick that David Sparks (@DigitalSkraps, @CS2Interactive) told us at a lecture I attended. All designs that you upload are automatically aligned to the top left of the browser window. Your design will be better preserved if you keep most of your design elements (pictures, text, textures, etc.) on the left side of the page. David's profiles utilize this technique very well, check them out HERE and HERE. Or, scroll down.

David's profile image is huge. If you don't want a huge image, make sure that where your image cuts off you set a background color that matches your image in some way. If you can't make the colors the exact same, at least make them in the same palette. Don't be this guy:

 

You may be wondering why you should worry about alignment, and would it not be easier to just tile whatever image you want to use? Yes and no. With tiling images on Twitter, the fluid layout makes it difficult to predict how your image will tile. I personally am not a fan of visible seams in a tiled image, and I feel like it can be a little busy and rough on the eyes when someone is visiting your profile. If you are going to use a pattern, make sure that it tiles seamlessly. This is NOT easy. If you just want a bunch of tiles of your logo, then yes it's easier. But that's no fun! Here's an example of super fun tiling from my buddy Will Bryant:

Push the boundaries of the design constraints of Twitter, and let me know what you come up with in the comments.

For more resources on designing for Twitter or other social media sites, here are a couple of good places to go: 

NERD ALERT 2: these two websites are very, very nerdy. But awesome at the same time. Good luck and have fun!