Although Facebook has changed their layout multiple times since its initial, college-students-only years, the latest update is the most different. The most visual change is the new cover image that spans the top of your page.

As a brand, it’s important to maintain a consistent visual identity across all media platforms. What’s great about the new cover feature is it allows you to do just that. Your company can tell their story in a visually interesting way at the top of the page.

We’ve been busy designing cover images over the past few weeks. We’ve picked up a few tips and restrictions to keep in mind.

TIPS FOR A GOOD LOOKING TIMELINE:

Make sure your cover image works with your profile picture. Your profile picture will now show up as a square that covers part of the cover. Both items sit closely together, so have a little fun. 

Make sure your profile picture looks good as a square. Although you can adjust the thumbnail view, visitors are not likely to click through your image. Keep it simple with a company logo. When you edit the thumbnail view, you can check “Fit to Scale” to make sure your logo isn’t cut off.

Get the right dimensions. Even though Facebook does pixelate the image, your cover should still look good. Design a cover that works as a horizontal image. Make sure to upload a hi-res file.

Tell a story and express your company’s style. Make sure your brand page matches your company’s branding. This your chance to tell your story and engage your audience as soon as they hit your page. 

FACEBOOK COVER DIMENSIONS:

Cover images are 851 x 315.

Profile picture thumbnails are 132 x 132 with a 1px solid border. 

Personal pages and brand pages have different measurements in relation to where the profile picture sits on top of the cover image.

On brand pages: The profile picture sits about 22 pixels to the left, and 72 pixels up.

On personal pages: The profile picture sits about 22 pixels to the left, and 92 pixels up.

FACEBOOK COVER IMAGE RULES & RESTRICTIONS

These are important things to keep in mind. You don’t want to waste time or money having a cover image designed only to get your Facebook account suspended.

• No price or purchase information, including discounts or coupons.
• No contact information. This includes websites, addresses, emails, phone numbers, etc. Keep all this in your About section.
• No references to Facebook features, such as “Like” or “Share”. No arrows point from the cover to any of these.
• No calls to actions (“Get it now” or “Tell your friends”)
• It may not be false, deceptive, or misleading. It must not infringe on third parties’ intellectual property. Make sure you own the images, or at least have a right to use them.

Now for the fun part! Here are a few of our designs.

We used our cover to be creative and tell our story on painless perceived legitimacy. We also added a bit of a shadow around where the thumbnail profile picture was. 

A take on the classic typewriter keys for a creative copywriting, GlobalWrites.

We wanted to showcase all the aspects this marketing agency, Marketing Refresh, offers. This is one great way to tell your company’s story.

A great local band, Castle Lights, wanted to feature their recent tunes.

For more details on the latest Facebook update, check out Facebook’s Guide.

Unfortunately, we can’t give many of you Musers-to-be the easy step-by-step answer you were hoping for. We actually had a fantastic developer (DesignBigger) help us with this. 

We originally used Arbitrary HTML / an iframe of our Tumblr blog. This is one option. It just doesn’t look great on a site.

DesignBigger actually helped us create a WordPress blog that looked like our site, and set it up on our domain. 

Hope that answers any questions.

Les Champagnes de Vignerons hosts trade-only events for buyers across the United States. 

Our not-so-secret love for all things French & wine made this a perfect project for us.

We were able to have some fun with typography on this flyer. UBIFRANCE have been a great client, allowing us some creative freedom.

Courtney Cachet is an internationally known designer whose clientele include A-list celebrities, NBC, Huffington Post, Rachel Zoe, and many others. When she’s not working with celebrities and media, she is designing her furniture, jewelry, and electronic accessories lines.

A few months ago, we designed a simple, yet chic new site for her. The site needed to match her motto: “An eye for style and a head for business.”

Built on WordPress, and designed with her style in mind, CourtneyCachet.com integrated a blog, social media, and press for her at ease. (Thanks to Click & Create for easy implementation).

Courtney is a great client to work with. Check out some of her products at courtneycachet.com (You might also win a makeover and Windows Phone)!

http://meghanthome.com/2012/01/30/website-design-inspiration/

We’re honored to be listed with Jason Mraz, Invisible Children (a fantastic non-profit), Carsonified, GOOD, and Ryan Scherf.

Thanks Meghan Thome!

Now that I can blog (I’m testing that ability) from a shiny new iPhone, here is the background I made for it after installing the Dropbox app earlier this evening. Feel free to use it if you’re like me and want to be just like me.

For the past 30 years, the team at Adobe have been creating amazing products for the design community (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and so much more). 

For those of you lucky enough to attend the Conference, you were able to get a sneak peek of Adobe’s latest project “Muse” (code name). 

We were lucky enough to snag a beta of this and work with the people at Adobe to create our new website and tweak some things along the way.

Adobe Muse is now available in public beta. Our new website is currently showcased on the official Muse site.

Aleberry Creative on Muse

Muse Showcase

We are excited, and as always Adobe has been a great team to work with. We’d like to thank Adobe once again for everything they have done and continue to do for the design community. 

- Aleberry Creative Group

For the past 30 years, the team at Adobe have been creating amazing products for the design community (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and so much more). 

For those of you lucky enough to attend the Conference, you were able to get a sneak peek of Adobe’s latest project “Muse” (code name). 

We were lucky enough to snag a beta of this and work with the people at Adobe to create our new website and tweak some things along the way.

Adobe Muse is now available in public beta. Our new website is currently showcased on the official Muse site.

Aleberry Creative on Muse

Muse Showcase

We are excited, and as always Adobe has been a great team to work with. We’d like to thank Adobe once again for everything they have done and continue to do for the design community. 

- Aleberry Creative Group

Gira quoted in a useful article on handling web clients. Some good information for those starting out.