Note From Beth: Nonprofits are beginning to unveil their new timeline designs (I’ve been post examples on my Facebook Page and curating them in pinterest) In the Friending the Finish Line peer learning group I’ve been working with, participants are sharing their creativity, including this cover design from Utah Children created by staff person Barbara Munoz. Other nonprofits are busy creating mock ups of the new timeline cover image for senior management. And, you need to think about the cover image design in the context of your overall content strategy.
But what if you don’t have the resources to hire a graphic designer and need to do it in-house? Nonprofit Techie Ash Shepherd to the rescue! Armed with his advice and resources which includes a simple graphic template, some good photos, a good tagline, and a tool like photoshop, your organization can create a respectable DYI cover image in less than an hour. After reading his post, I thought it was so useful, I invited him to share it as a guest post.
How To Create A Terrific Facebook Cover Image If You Don’t Have Resources To Hire A Designer by Guest Post Ash Shepherd
By now you must have heard the announcement that by the end of March all pages on Facebook will be rolling over to the new timeline look. With this comes a long list of changes that not only relate to the look of page but will also have important impacts on functionality.
Some of the major changes include
- Lose of custom landing tabs
- No more “Wall”
- Ability to “pin” items to the top
- New message functionality
There is lots more to know about the coming changes so you can plan and adjust your strategies. That however is not what this post is about. For the latest breaking information (and killer videos) I would strongly encourage you to check out and subscribe to John Haydon’s blog. Quicker than you can say “What is happening” John will have a video up telling you exactly how it will affect your nonprofit. In fact he literally wrote the book on Facebook.
Other helpful recent blog posts on changes and tatics include:
What You Will Learn In This Post
This post is simply to share a couple resources for those folks looking to build their own covers. You can simply crop a photo to fit the new dimensions (849 x 413) or even upload a regular picture and do the auto-cropping thing.
For those with a tiny bit of experience with Photoshop looking to do a bit more here are a few PSD files that you can use to create and view mock-ups.
Cover Photo Template
This is a basic file that allows you to work on your layered cover photo with a basic overlay of how the Profile picture might overlap and interact with it.
Download Facebook Timeline Cover PSD file
It will be exciting to see some of the creative results that nonprofits come up with over the next month. Below are some examples to get your creative juices flowing.
Originally posted at Razoo
Originally posted at SocialFresh
Originally posted at SmashingHub
Originally posted at Inspirationfeed
Full Mock-Up Template
It is helpful to see a preview or “Try on a few outfits” without having an update go out on the Facebook news feed saying you updated your cover. No one likes to draw attention to themselves during a rehearsal. It can also be a helpful way to share previews with other members of your organization prior to going live.
That is why I found this PSD file for the full mock-up preview useful. In the interest of maintaining credit where it is due the originator of the file Hongkait.com has his branding on the template. I have modified the file you can download so that you can cover that up by simply making a layer visible.
Download the full mock-up PSD file
Some Basic Tips
With custom landing tabs going away this cover image is your new first impression so use it wisely. Herer are a few tips on things to include:
- Show your personality
- Make your call to action here
- Give a bit of that “next step” contact information
- Offer versions that fans can download and use to show their support for your organization
Not A Photoshop Ninja?
For those not ready to use Photoshop below are a few good free online resources for some basic and user-friendly tools to do some layering and effects.
So what are your plans? Do you have a cover image you would like to share? Would love to hear about it or see links in the comments.
Ash Shepherd is as a Project Strategist for NPower NW as a Consultant/Trainer where his focus is on online communications and tools as well as the overall process of planning and evaluating effective use of technology. He also does some freelancing through Indaba Designs. This post was originally published on his blog.
Ash says
Beth, thanks for sharing this post with your readers. Hope folks find it useful and offer any feedback on how it could be improved. Would love to ramp up these resources even more and get them back out to people.
Jon Loomer says
This is great! I’m still in preview mode while I fix up my apps and cover image. I’m having a tough time coming up with the “ultimate cover photo” idea, but this helps for inspiration!
Emily Dew says
Thanks for adding some ideas and free resources! One note however – the advice to add your call to action to the cover photo directly conflicts with Facebook’s guidelines (see here under “Page Features”: https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php and John Haydon’s explanation here: http://www.nonprofitfacebookguy.com/facebook-page-timeline-cover-image-guidelines-what-not-to-do/)
Though there may be creative ways for an organization to visually communicate a need to be addressed or a suggestion of how others can get involved, an explicit call to action is probably better highlighted elsewhere on the page.
John Haydon says
Beth – thanks for the mention (sorry I’m only catching this now). I’d be curious to hear what other video tutorials might be helpful…
Linda says
I am learning about Corel PaintShop layers AND the new FB Cover Page all at the same time! Just began last night, messing around with pages for two causes I am admin on. Thanks for all the resources and tips here, they make this transition a lot less scary!
Chiranjeev says
Really nice wau to create such a cool cover page for facebook timeline profile.
Graham says
Beth- I was hoping you could tell me what you think of this Cover Photo tool: http://www.timelineimagecreator.com
Vijay Chhuttani says
Nice Article…was looking for a mockup PSD n got here. I would like to suggest one thing… U should think about redesigning your comment section. There is very little room for the text to breath… n suffocation hurts. N thanks for the PSD 🙂
Ash Shepherd says
Vijay,
Happy to hear the template was helpful for you.
How2Blog says
Really nice instructionzzzz. Tnx a lot dude 🙂
Ash says
Vijay,
Very useful tool and have been happy to share it (the credit to you) with others. Thanks for sharing in the first place.
Maria Paul says
hi!! Is there any other site like http://www.jellycovers.com who designs facebook cover for free????
Korko says
Nice article but some may not want to use Photoshop. For that, I created a simple tool to just create a combination of the profile picture and the cover from a single image : http://www.korko.fr/clevercover/
Give it a try!
Taylor says
Awesome tut! Here’s mine – https://www.facebook.com/taylorkwek
Jo Sermon says
Many thanks for your help, wonderful!
mahesh says
i was wondering how to create cover image..this article shows me some idea.i will try to do it.thanks for the post
ruthy thomas says
Good article dude. By the way, You quote “If You Don’t Have Resources To Hire A Designer” why should we hire a designer when http://jellycovers.com/ like sites offers cover designs for free of cost as per our ideas and customisation.
Rikesh Maharjan says
Thanks for the information and I will apply these to put up an new facebook cover photo on my timeline. And I would like to try this one also.http://www.facebookcovers.info
Alex Saji says
Awesome article. I really liked!!
Arsie Organo says
Indeed your collection of Facebook cover photos are really terrific!
Osho Garg says
Thanks For Guide 🙂
This really Helps 🙂
Jenny says
Thanks so much!