I found it surprisingly complicated to use a logo as my profile picture. Here is the procedure that worked for me:
Creating the Logo
Creating the actual logo was easy with this cool website: https://logomakr.com/
I used the free download option 2 to save the logo in PNG format to my computer.
Increasing the Canvas Size
Unfortunately Steemit would cut off the borders of my logo. To work around this I increased the canvas size of the logo picture. The canvas is the surface on which a picture is painted. My goal was to increase the canvas while leaving the picture at its original size, so I would get an empty border around my logo. Then Steemit could cut off the empty border and my logo would still be visible in its entirety.
The program I used to edit the image was GIMP. I like it because it is free and available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
- Open the image file (the PNG downloaded from Logomakr) in GIMP.
- Open the dialog for adjusting the canvas size:
- Link the chain so that width and heigth change together:
- Increase the width by about 230 pixels (height gets adjusted automatically because you have linked both values in the previous step):
- Save the modifications by overwriting the original PNG image file:
Publishing the Logo on the Web
While you can easily upload and embed pictures in a Steemit story it seems that currently the profile picture must be stored somewhere else and be accessible through a web link (an URL).
So I made a free imgur account and uploaded my logo.
A simple click on the image in imgur opens the following dialog that lets you copy the web link required for Steemit (you want the "Direct Link"):
Referencing the Logo in Steemit
In Steemit you click on your (possibly still empty) profile picture:
This reveals the menu where you can choose "Settings":
Finally you insert the web link to your logo on imgur as the "PROFILE PICTURE URL" and then click the UPDATE button below:
P.S: English is not my native tongue and I appreciate your feedback if you spot mistakes. But please don't point out differences between UK and USA English, it is not worth the trouble.