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Many people ask how I make #TwitterArt. How they can make it, too. Here is the first thing to know:
Part 1. Where to find the shapes and symbols:
On older Mac operating systems open the "Character Palette" (usually pulls down from flag icon upper right), on the current Mac OS (10.7) open "Special Characters" (at the bottom of the "edit" menu) on PC open the "Character Map" (I don't use PC, I don't remember where it is)
This, above, is a picture of the Character Map, which looks very similar to the current "Special Characters" interface. I enter objects from it directly into Twitter (or HootSuite, or a Text Edit program, like TextEdit). Then I tweet the art I've made.
More about how to arrange unicode objects and make pictures below, but that is the first step, and the most important one: Find the Character Palette and open it.
All the objects your operating system supports are there: ▲◤◒ ╠╬╝ ╭╮ ☝➷ ⤴⤶₦ʘ ∰ … no special application or specialized knowledge needed! Try it! It is mildly addictive… =^)
I mostly use "Geometric Shapes" "Miscellaneous Symbols" and "Enclosed Letters"…
All these shapes & symbols are contained in Twitter's main body font. Most contemporary fonts contain the same unicode objects, though different fonts / versions look a little different & contain some different characters… Beyond A thru Z, there are dozens of languages, glyphs, symbols, objects, braille… invisible objects, even!
Important note: Unicode objects read differently in different contexts. Their appearances vary from font version to font version, between various fonts, by operating system, by browser, and by device. More PCs read one subset of shapes better and Macs read a different subset better—though there is a lot of overlap, and a few ways to optimize viewing (set Lucidia Grande as the preferred font for your browser.)
#TwitterArt is best viewed in FireFox (on most operating systems), and the current Safari browser (on Mac OSX 10.7+)
Part 2. The Order of the Objects
Twitter doesn't recognize the [rerurn] key, so making line breaks requires the artist to use unbroken strings of objects that are just more than 1/2 as wide as the Twitter text window. When separated by a space, these strings of unicode characters can't fit on the same line and are forced onto consecutive lines. That creates a "line return" and makes the objects "stack."
In the new Twitter, lines need to be a minimum of 16 or 22 objects depending on the type of geometric shape.
╭━━━━┳┓┏┳━┳┳━━╮
┃╭╮╭╮┃┃┃┃╭┻┫╭╮┃
┃┃┃┃┃┃┃┃┃╰┳┫┃┗┛
┃┃┃┃┃┃┃┃┣╮┃┃┃┏┓
┃┃┃┃┃┃╰╯┣╯┃┃╰╯┃
┗┛┗┛┗┻━━┻━┻┻━━╯
Stacking: 6 lines, 15 objects wide.
Works in OLD New Twitter, Fails in NEW New Twitter.
NEEDS 16 OBJECT WIDTH FOR RETURN.
As I mentioned, different groups of unicode objects have different fixed widths. I usually work with the subset of "Geometrical Shapes" of "1-unit" width that views best on Mac and on hand-held devices like smart phones and tablets. ┏┗╋┣┓┫┛╭╰╮╯╱╲╳◯◢◤◥◣ ▔▁▂▃▅▆▇▉ ▊▋▍▎▏▕►△ and a few more + some "Miscellaneous Symbols." I think of these as "second generation" unicode objects.
To make a line break and create the kind of "stacked" images and block-writing that I do, I use 15 of these shapes in a row. Up to 29 will fit on a single line, but 15 is the only width that works in both the main Twitter window and the extended right-side-bar.
Strings of 16 to 31 "second generation" unicode objects a line break.
Strings of 22 to 43 "first generation" unicode objects make a line break.
"First generation" unicode objects are narrower, at 3/4 the width of the 2nd generation ones. They include ╔╠╚└┌┼╞╘╒╓╙╟ ░▒▓█▀▄ ║─═ and several more shapes. They work better on more PCs, view incorrectly on more Macs and mobile devices, but still read fine on many Macs & hand-helds. (I will never be able to upgrade one of my Macs from OSX 10.4.11 because it views both first and second generation shapes correctly (in FireFox 3.6.20)).
There are "third generation" shapes, too, "1-unit" wide that fit with the "second generation" objects that look wrong on my 4-year-old laptop but correct on my iPad. And situations in which less than 15 "1-unit" objects makes a line break and the narrower "3/4-unit" object read as full-width. I see people making art that looks wrong to me but where I can see what rules they are using.
I personally use a narrow subset of second generation unicode shapes at the same line width (15) most of the time so that I know that the widest range of my followers can read the art "right" in as many contexts as possible (in Twitter itself, those contexts include the main window right-and-left columns, and in the status window. Other contexts include other devices (iPhone, Droid, iPad, Blackberry, etc.) and other applications (HootSuite, Seesmic, TweetDeck, etc.))
Compatibility wise, it seems like TweetDeck and BlackBerry users have the most frequent issues reading #TwitterArt—though I do see ReTweets from both of those platforms, so some users have no problem. I know that users of Safari, Chrome, IE, etc. report rendering errors, and I've looked at the art in a number of browsers.
Part 3. Make Revisions and Test Runs Before You Tweet.
While I used to just use a staging account (a "locked" account that no one follows), now I compose my art in TextEdit. Any text program will do. Then I test-tweet them in the staging account to be sure they're going to look right. It often takes a couple-few variations before the art looks complete to me, and I don't want that creative refinement process to be out there—just the "finished product." As far as using a text program or note pad, that is also the best way to archive art to access later… much easier than scrolling through my staging account.
Part 4. Randomly
The More You Know: ASCII is a small subset of Unicode & ISO/IEC 10646 which ultimately contains about 100,000 characters! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#Unicode
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I used to own a house at #115 (23x5). I was born in 69 (23x3). The Simpson's did a 138th episode for a specific reason (23x6): The Number 23. The 9th prime. I'm a 23-ologist. Even though I gather it turned Jim Carey into an evil jazz musician. So...↗⁀↘‿ ⒼⓄ ⓌⒾⓉⒽ ⓉⒽⒺ ⒻⓁⓄⓌ↗⁀↘‿ had the RT button 23x2 (46) times (plus me) when I shot this.
"ReTweeted by MCHaggett and 46 others."
"Why 23?" Come on - you know: 23 axioms in Euclidean geometry, 23 chromosomes from each parent genetically. Like any number, when you look for it, you will see it around you extra. (Especially in TV & movies where it is like a writers' chronic inside joke - there is a disproportionate use of 23. One of the Lost numbers, even.) Unlike most numbers, however, when you see it... it sees you. (evil laugh)
It came into cultural popularity through William S Burroughs & Robert Anton Wilson, mainly, I guess... propagating through subcultures to the point where it is now pretty much mainstream. Take that awful (I assume) Jim Carey movie. Not to be like "I've been into '23' since the 80's" - but I have. Whatever. I'm glad people know. I'm not superstitious - and it is not superstition. Most of the universe is dark. We can just barely perceive anything "non-local" - and that is most of everything.
23 points to non-locality. Synchronicity. Meaningful coincidence-like events. And something else entirely.
The "dark" part of the universe - that science can see for certain is there but imperceptible - might as well be called "supernatural." It is beyond the laws of nature we know, beyond perception, and interacts with the visible world in unknown ways. We can tell that our perception ends at the speed of light, but that on a quantum level, everything is connected, exchanging information faster than light. All particles in the universe were entangled up to the end of the inflationary period - so everything is still in touch with everything else, 14.5 billion years later. It seems reasonable to expect synchronicity, or something like it. From science, I believe that what lies behind the world is something far greater than- and far different from- everything we know as 'reality.' Something like 'meaning' and 'intent' pervades / propels the world from beyond. 23 is 'about' that idea. Maybe the bible is, too.
"The belief in coincidence is the prevalent superstition of the Age of Science"
"Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys."
Quotes by Shea/Wilson and Bull respectively. But follow that link for a nice, short group of quotes about synchronicity and coincidence by Jung and a couple others. Almost too nice. But they're all good. For more info on 23, consult the universe and 23 will be in contact sooner than later. ;^)
@Twitter has done a beautiful thing w/ their #WorldCup icons! So #TwitterArt! :^)
This tweet uses all 140 & relies on characters that some Tweeps will see "wrong." I've been using the "safest" character set for "World Cup" art. But this is too beautiful: A globe @140artist made, that I reworked for the occasion. It relies on the unique Twitter icons to make the line-breaks / vertical alignment work.
I just got the "New Twitter" on my @tw1tt3rart account. Oh boy.
From a general user perspective, it is an overall improvement. (#TwitterArt-Specific observations with next image) The layout is awkward in some modes (with the "sidebar" being about as wide as the "main window"… but when navigating through the Tweet stream it is an improvement to be sure. The expanded navigation with the side bar has got to be what is driving the sometimes-lopsided layout.
In this pic, I've clicked on #TwitterArt to search, then the "Top Tweet" button which expands the data into the side-bar (with map, retweet, and hashtag data below the tweet) (perfect #TwitterArt handling here! Sweet!)
The data-heavy version of the side-bar is used in a lot of the navigation & for the most part seems great.
I also love that they kept the transparent side-bar hack working. I even test uploaded an animated avatar—and it worked for the first time ever. Those are small touches, no doubt, but I'm glad to see them.
The infinite scroll might be my favorite new feature. I hope that works in "Followers" too. It is not yet integrated, I guess, showing the number of followers with the message "You don't have any followers yet."
But on my page, with infinite scroll, you can go back through the tweet art 5X faster (or more) and without that lurking technical error… the robot with the claw fallen off. "Something is technically wrong." I'll miss him & fail whale but… no I wont! It is awesome! Huge improvement for my Tweet art at least, because people can see so much more of it before losing attention. I just skimmed back two months in seconds, not minutes. No more hitting MORE is a great thing.
More observations, from the perspective of #TwitterArt with my following image: Profile & Timeline
This content must have been "in the air." After I made these "Leo, Virgo, and Libra" tweets & stowed them in my staging account, @twartist and @andreapacione both started tweeting Zodiac art… I didn't tweet any of my three until just now. It probably looked like I was jacking the Zodiac theme… but here is evidence. I made them 18 hours ago. The rest is Psychic Octopus.
@LaughingSquid Tweeted about @tw1tt3rart when it was just new. It was very exciting to be mentioned—they had 40-some thousand followers then, 47+ thousand now—the kind of people who might dig #TwitterArt. That mention was, I believe, where Biz Stone saw my ASCII-Art-on-Twitter project, and then Tweeted about it himself.
So… I just Tweeted this "At" @LaughingSquid… and I'm going to tweet this Flickr link at 'em too… Just want to make sure they get my love letter.
Not all readers will show the picture right. Broken characters, failed line returns, uneven object sizes. I recommend FireFox for Mac (or PC, second) with Arial Unicode font installed, with the Twitter web site itself or HootSuite. Also works in Twitter for iPhone / Droid. Minimal viewing other mobile devices or 3rd party apps, as far as I know.
"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." ~Blaise Pascal
FOLLOW UP
Wow. Scott, Mr Laughing Squid himself, picked it up and made a blog post immediately. Looks perfect in the statuses screenshot on the user end (i.e. in the laughingsquid.com blog) = #TwitterArt #NotFail. I am psyched! *Nailed it*
laughingsquid.com/laughing-squid-twitter-art/
Oh, "Twitter Art" in the title of the permalink in the Laughing Squid blog! And a link to my site! Wow.
And just today Twitter's location service came back. Good timing! I love broadcasting out of Portland OR.
Happy squid day. 6/9/10
I just got the "New Twitter" on my @tw1tt3rart account. Oh boy.
From a #TwitterArt perspective, it is an overall improvement. Existing art tweets (that don't rely on the "invisible character") all work unchanged. But in New Twitter, the rendering versions of each tweet is more standardized: "most recent tweet" is no longer larger than the ones that follow it. "Statuses" view has the same line length/line break qualities as the other views (though it still inexplicably in a different font from the rest of Twitter)
The largest improvement is that the new standard width not only supports existing "vertically aligned" #TwitterArt but it also allows 2/3 more width options (per my formal constraints, at least.) (Constraint: I try to make vertically aligned #TwitterArt break the same in as many situations as possible. By standardizing situational rendering, Twitter has made my work much easier.)
The only downside is that my system now renders one "spacer" character at 1/4 width rather than 1 width. This is consistent with some other readers, like Hootsuite. But causes much #TwitterArt built with the "spacer" to collapse.
Oh well. Still a huge overall improvement. Very friendly towards vertically aligned #TwitterArt.
More user observations with my following image: Expanded Top Tweet
I try to make my tweets with exactly this line length: 16 & 17 "1-width" unicode characters in a row. That way line-breaks work (15 char. is too short) but the lines don't overflow and make additional line breaks that distort the image (18+ characters makes a "forced break" in either statuses or as "most recent" tweet - the top one on one's page.) This piece of @Twart1st's uses 25 character lines, for example. (Can't tell what the image is supposed to be - but it looks right everywhere else on Twitter: on page and in feed.
Of course, different browsers, operating systems, and font versions make Twitterart read differently, so my length-rules don't make a difference for some viewers. Apparently no tweets are "correctly" viewiable in statuses to @140artist
Wow. I'd seen this kind of #TwitterArt breaking bad in the tweet stream & knew I wasn't seeing them how they were intended. In statuses, however… 13-line vertical stack. That's huge!
(from @140artist)
@TWART1ST's "Fail Whale" dead, floating upside down in the #OilSpill hastag on Twitter.
Different "people results" come up from one week to the next (at the top of the search for #twitterart in #newtwitter)… I like this group!
Follow them if you like unicode art on Twitter: @twart1st, @140artist, @aggregart,
and me (of course =^)
┳╮┳╮╱╭╮╮╭╱┳┓╭╮┳╮
┣╯┣┻╮┣┫╰┫╱┣╱┃┃┣┻╮
┻╱┻╱┻┗┗╰╯╱ #prayforjapan
╱╱┳╭━╮┳━╮╭━╮┳╮┳╱
╱╱┃┣━┫┣━╯┣━┫┃┃┃╱
╰━╯┻╱┛┻╱╱┻╱┛┻╰┻╱
#twitterart #japan #do :
mini motion picture
RootCat art participation to the Japan relief efforts besides helping the Japan Red Cross personally.
Dedicated to all my friends from Japan and released in the name of all the twitterartists, asciiartists, symbolartists or minimal artists in the world..
(RootCat, March 2011/REMIX JULY)
video: RootCat (2011)
music: Wendy Carlos Clockwork' opening (remixed)
soundtrack by courtesy
RootCat's tribute to Bach'switched maestro's master)
some rights reserved, all of this and even less
but maybe more — Oh Lord...
Peace, love and harmony for Wendy
(born Walter but a fundamental Lady)
© 2011 copyart control
Watch this video on Vimeo. Video created by RootCat.
The main thing that bugs me in the #twitterart New Twitter is how there is a tiny bit more space between the lines of text. This creates white horizontal lines across what used to be solid color areas.
It isn't the end of the world. Or the end of my art project. It just diminishes the aesthetic appeal of my page, which has got to be one of the most aesthetically interesting pages on Twitter, with all the little drawings and so forth.
I'm also not crazy about how the text has to be gray… my page is just going to look less cool for these changes. @tw1tt3rart is going to suffer but regular text pages' readability is improved. So… whatever.
That is why I tweeted about not wanting #NewTwitter.
That and the fact that @tw1tt3rart goes with public sentiment & just tweets whatever people are going to agree with, within certain parameters. It is art for the people. =^) And sure enough, that anti-New Twitter art became Top Tweet for the #NewTwitter search. Which makes me kind of sad for Twitter. I'm grateful for the cool free service, regardless.
If you look back through my Flickr, you'll see all my criteria for liking New Twitter better. Now if Twitter can just get the site running consistently, and not have such wide ranging and frequent malfunctions… I'm good with all of it… advertise to me… have a freakishly lopsided layout… whatever. Twitter is a privilege, not a right, so I'm not bitching (too much).
Coming up some time later on @tw1tt3rart... This image: I build in a staging account. @tw1tt3sv currently. Including the "private" lock icon, @tw1tt3sv is the same length a @tw1tt3rart... It matters for line breaks. Please don't request to follow it. You'd hate it - it is not entertainment - often, I Tweet the same thing 20X in 10 min with little edits each time (that is how I compose unicode art for Twitter: test-flighting it in a private account) - I so as a rule, I don't accept follower requests.
My little ASCII art project is one year old. Followers: 26,193 Listed: 2,101 Tweets: 1,505… Not huge by Twitter standards, but that is something. It is a weird whale, stringing together unicode objects, making pictures where just about everyone else is writing words. Drawing pictures of words…
Thanks to New Twitter, I can get all the way back to my first tweet in 6 minutes (as opposed to never… old Twitter couldn't get back that many pages.) Pictured above, my 1st tweets. Twitter Artist… that's me.
Just thought it was cool how @140artist's bio (the rampaging robot picture) shows up in New Twitter's expanded information sidebar.
RRRAAWWWR Robot smash.
Twitter glitched, showing follow counts as zero. "Following 0" began trending. I did a "FOLLOWING 0" tweet right on time & got 175 retweets during the time the count was out (2-3 hours?). That one won't keep going like Space Invaders - but that is a personal best for amount of RTs fast - and one of my top RT'd to date. Neat.
Also shown, the 2 previous art-tweets - with 89 & 56 RTs respectively. That is above my average @tw1tt3rart. tw1tt3rartSAYS serves an unanticipated purpose, letting me do "over length" tweets & keep them as @tw1tt3rart's "Top tweet." Geeky/obsessed about the line breaks. If I'm not, who will be?
Not fail: This (27) 3/4-width character art (█─▀▄)Tweet looks "right" everywhere else in Twitter. For breaks to work & "right reading in first position," art Tweets should use ~23 character long unicode stings. The 1-width characters, like ◢◣◤◥ works best in most contexts with ~16 character unbroken lines separated by a (space) or a (return).
The companion piece to my #Twitterart The New Yorker title, 4.15.10. Both in RE: to @jenniferdaniel's Tweet "When is @tw1tt3rart going to illustrate the cover of @NewYorker?" I hope the answer ends in 2010... :^) I'm ready to go!
PS: this Tweet art is a Flikr exclusive. Not available in the Tweet stream.