The One With the Timeline Cover Photos

As you probably know, Facebook made it's official, non-negotiable switch to Timeline recently. This snazzy new get-up includes a cover photo in addition to a profile picture. Well, I may have gotten a bit carried away the other day when I figured out how to make cool cover photos using a Photoshop template...

It all started with the page for my father-in-law, who is running for Commissioner in Skamania County, Washington. I've done the rest of his ads for him (yard signs mostly). But when he added a Facebook page I just couldn't bear for it to look too boring. So I requested admin privileges (got 'em!) and then did a little research to find out the easiest way to create an awesome cover photo. And voila!

Is it the coolest thing ever to be created? Certainly not. But it's an election campaign. We're going for basic and bold here, people. But I do think it turned out well.

A few years ago I also designed the logo for Carson General Store (another enterprise in the Waters' family businesses). I thought it was about time to update their sad-looking little Facebook page. (The sad-looking part is entirely mea culpa.)

I might want to improve this one in the future, but for now, I think it nicely incorporates the logo that I designed way back when.

And so then I couldn't stop there and decided to make my own timeline cover a little extra special. And combine my affinity for instagram. Did you know I only ever use the same filter? You can go ahead and assume I have OCD. I very well might. But! I do think it made the timeline look pretty cool... if I do say so myself:

I definitely like that it allows me to showcase more of my favorite instagrams.

And since I still had the cover photo bug (what the heck is wrong with me?), I decided not only to create a cover photo for this blog, but a whole Facebook page as well! (And just my luck, Facebook is going to nix the timeline in about 3.5 hours...)

So, now you can like The One With the Cupcakes on Facebook to get updates about posts and such on your news feed. Just think of all the time you'll save coming straight to the blog! It will be so much easier for you to show posts to your friends! And to think that if I hadn't discovered timeline covers you might have to do that anyway.

And if you're interested in creating your own unique timeline cover photo, here's how:

• Cover photos are 851 x 315 pixels, so open up a file that size in Photoshop and be on your way
• Check out these AWESOME cover photos people have made. Talk about cool...
• At the bottom of the article linked above you can find a template for Photoshop that shows you exactly how the cover photo and profile picture interact so you can download it to make sure your picture and cover are aligned correctly if you plan on incorporating the two. Saves a lot of time instead of you having to upload a bunch of trials and errors. 

If you use this info to make your own awesome Facebook timeline, I'd love for you to show me a link. As you can see, I'm mildly obssesed with these today.