Creating Twitter Backgrounds in Aviary

If not, I have something to tell you.
Hey guys, you can create Twitter backgrounds in Aviary!
AviaryTwitter.egg by meowza on AviaryAviaryTwitter.egg by meowza on Aviary.

There are a few points to keep in mind when creating your Twitter background image.

1. Real Estate — The center of your image will be obscured by the actual content on Twitter, so putting elements of importance in the middle will not be optimal, as it’ll be partially, if not completely, covered by all the juicy, can’t-miss tweets.

2. Resolution — Monitors of different resolutions will display background Twitter images differently. Creating images too small will cause abrupt cut-offs in your design or the need to use undesired tiling of your image on monitors of higher resolution. A good practice to remedy this problem is to create your image large enough so that it’ll work on monitors of large resolution and by keeping elements of importance contained approximately in the upper leftmost area of the image. Note, that background images will be nearly unidentifiable on monitors of 800×600 resolution, as the twitter content covers most of the screen. And also, if you’re still using a monitor at 800×600 resolution… duuude.

3. Alignment — It’s also worth noting that your background image will be aligned to the LEFT of a viewer’s screen. If you create an image suitable for large resolution monitors, remember that any excess of your image will be cut off on the right and bottom on monitors of smaller resolution. Many people choose to create background images which fade to a solid color on the right to prevent undesired cropping of background images or unwanted tiling.

How big??

twitterspace.egg by meowza on Aviary“I need space!”

As I mentioned, it’s good to begin with a larger image to display on monitors of varying resolutions. I find starting with a canvas size of 1680×1200 pixels covers the majority of resolutions out there.

Remember to keep space available at the top of your design to incorporate the Twitter logo and navigation bar.



Also, a lot of people choose to include a sidebar on the left. This allows you to include additional information about yourself including links to personal sites, your email address, or pictures of your dog that nobody cares to see. Again, it’s worth mentioning that you’re probably going to want the sidebar to be viewable on monitors of varying resolution. A good way to ensure this is to try to keep your sidebar around 200pixels wide, so as not to be obscured by the content in the middle on smaller monitors.

Here are some examples of Twitter backgrounds that can be created in Aviary.
Feel free to open up any of the creations to see how they were made.

TwitterCoffee.egg by meowza on AviaryTwitterCoffee.egg by meowza on Aviary.

TwitterBackgroundSwirls.egg by meowza on AviaryTwitterBackgroundSwirls.egg by meowza on Aviary using Mario’s Seamless 3 pattern as the base.

Abstract Wire Twitter.egg by meowza on AviaryAbstract Wire Twitter.egg by meowza on Aviary using mpeutz’ Abstract Wire Wallpaper as the base.

FireShapeBackground.egg by meowza on AviaryFireShapeBackground.egg by meowza on Aviary using underwatercolor’s fire shape as the base.

TwitterBGAviaryluvr.egg by meowza on AviaryTwitterBGAviaryluvr.egg by meowza on Aviary.

Create your own twitter backgrounds and post ‘em here! Let’s see what you’re doing!
Having troubles getting started? Check out this tutorial on creating Twitter backgrounds from start to finish!]]>
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Aviary Wins Webware 100 Award

YAY! We won the CNet Editor’s Award for Technical Achievement in the 2009 Webware100 competition.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote for us. A special thanks to Rafe and Josh and the rest of the Webware crew for bestowing this awesome honor upon us.]]>
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Awesome Aviary Review on G4 TV!


From their blog:

A new way to edit images online and for free? Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn explore the all new Aviary Image Editing Suite with four different applications to use–all through your web browser. Whether you want to juxtapose images together, or learn how to use a color pallette, Aviary lets you do it all.

Like what you saw? Create a free Aviary account now!]]>

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Find Your Friends on Aviary


When on your dashboard page you will see the option to find your friends.



Now just choose which email contact list you want to check.



Enter your email username and password. (We will not store your login or password (or any of your friends). Any data retrieved is solely to let you find your friends and will not be stored by us.)

Then like magic we will let you know which of your friends are on Aviary. Giving you the ability to keep up to date with their latest creations.

If for some reason they don’t have an Aviary account yet, you have the option to invite them to join the fun.

If you have multiple contact lists just rinse and repeat the previous steps.

Now wasn’t that easy?!
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Spreadshirt Contest Winners

Spreadshirt X Aviary Contest

The winners will each receive:

* A t-shirt with your winning design. [$30 value] (includes free shipping)
* A Premium Shop Membership at Spreadshirt. [$100 value] (limited to North America)
* An Aviary premium account. [$99 value]


With out further adieu, the followings artists had the most votes.


Fly Solo by nnizzle


the awkward years- even sharks have them by playing4square


is the princess having a bad day? by lregenold


Defend Minas Tirith by fitzroy


I Never Finish Anyth by hhoj66


Prehistoric Fly Hunting by Jiggafroob


LAZY GENIUS by foxy groutstuff


Flippin The Bird by hhoj66


pubics cube by carneydaz ]]>
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Phoenix: Now with custom fonts!

Phoenix, Aviary’s image editor, so anyone can use all the fonts on their computer (and open other people’s files, even if they dont have the font).



This was particularly tricky because our site is collaborative and we didn’t want anyone to have a bad experience when they were opening a shared file that contained a font missing on their computer.

Want to learn more? Here’s the full discussion in our forums.]]>
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Shopify & NY Daily News use Aviary API

Aviary’s new API to announce : Shopify, a beautiful ecommerce hosting site & the New York Daily News, one of the largest daily newspapers in the USA.

Shopify

Shopify announced integration with Aviary’s image editor Phoenix on their blog.

Now Shopify store owners can edit products shots, headers, and themes for their stores using Aviary. The images below show off the lovely integration on the Shopify admin panel.

product_images.png by michael on Aviary files.png by michael on Aviary

So what did Shopify customers think?

Twitter - Rami- @Shopify Just announced @a ....png by michael on Aviary

Thanks @visualcreative! We think you’re pretty awesome too!


The NY Daily News

The NY Daily News is running a great contest today to poke fun of the recent Air Force One flyover of NYC (background story) that scared lots of people and cost at least $60,000. They are trying to make a point about how easy and inexpensive it would have been to just have Photoshopped ($1,000) or used Aviary’s image editor (free) to put Air Force One into scenes.

The Daily News even used Aviary’s API to let you launch the Aviary image editor directly from their article!

Here are some creations from their contest that were made in Aviary:

Ed Juline - AF1 Flyby.egg by ejuline on Aviary
Ed Juline – AF1 Flyby.egg by ejuline on Aviary


Bush-Obama-Jerusalem-flyover.egg by dubinsky on Aviary
Bush-Obama-Jerusalem-flyover.egg by dubinsky on Aviary


Flyover Sodus.egg by rbbensinger on Aviary
Flyover Sodus.egg by rbbensinger on Aviary


We are excited by the number of developers who are tinkering with the Aviary API and cant wait until they release it to the public. If you have any ideas about how you would like the Aviary API to be implemented leave a comment. Your wish might come true.]]>
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Congrats! Meowza got engaged!

Meowza and fellow Aviary / Worth1000 member Brandien on their engagement!



The whole Aviary / Worth1000 team and community is so happy for both of you!]]>
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Artist Spotlight Bluenovember


Artist: Bluenovember
Tool of Choice: Phoenix
User since: Jan. 16th, 2009



I really like to draw but am always putting it aside to learn something new. Sometimes going for months without even thinking about it and then something happens that makes me scramble for my pencils.
This time it was seeing Bluenovember’s images. They reached out and grabbed me and brought back in a flash all of the things I love about drawing.
Beautifully soft and perceptive, from heartrending to whimsical (love the fairy smoking) she invokes a strong range of emotion from her images.
I am inspired by these drawings as I hope you are. New to image editing, Phoenix has taken her down a new path, a path I would like to shine a light on.

From Bluenovember:

For most of my creations I draw my pictures freehand, scan them onto my computer and edit them on Aviary. I’ve always enjoyed drawing but Aviary helped me put my creations on another level.

My influences seem to vary from music to my emotion at the time. Take Just 1 Little miracle for example, I drew that just hours after a loss in my family. I could feel strong emotions and used my art as an outlet.

My favorite images are Just 1 Little Miracle, as well as Untitled. I really like Just 1 Little Miracle because I finally accomplished channeling emotion into one of my drawings. Untitled because the posture of the girl seemed very pretty to me and I enjoyed layering the images. Also another favorite of mine is Girl on Box. I inverted the colors and made this drawing 100 times cooler by just pushing one button in Phoenix.

App I enjoy? Oh this is such and easy question :) Without a doubt I spend most of all of my time in Phoenix.

Here are a few of bluenovember’s creations (click the pictures to see larger views and access the egg files):

Just 1 Little Miracle



Untitled



Girl on box



his darkness



Purple Fairy




You can view Bluenovember’s full portfolio here.Thanks for all your wonderful creations bluenovember.



============================================================== Aviary is a suite of powerful creative applications that you can use right in your web browser. Head on over to the Aviary homepage to try the applications out for free and learn more! Sign up for an account to create, share, and collaborate with our community of artists.

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Announcing Aviary’s API


Since opening our doors, we’ve received many requests for the ability to embed Aviary’s applications within other websites.

Well, we heard your chirps and are now proud to present the first version of our API!

Harness the power of Aviary’s online image editor (Phoenix), vector editor (Raven), effects editor (Peacock) and color palette creator (Toucan) by adding just a few lines of code to your site. All you need are some basic server-side scripting skills in the language of your choice.

Register for the API and check out the documentation:

http://aviary.com/apidocs

If you need any help getting started, visit our forums or chat room and just ask!

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