I picked up an interesting story in the Sydney Morning Herald as I was on the plane back to London explaining the origins of the “fail whale” picture that greets twitter users when twitter is over capacity.

Apparently the artwork was designed some years ago by Sydney designer Yiying Lu, and is titled “lifting up a dreamer”.

According to the article, twitter co-founder Biz Stone saw the graphic on iStock photo website and decided to use it for their “site down” message – and was not designed by twitter.

You can read more about this on the SMH website.