Facebook Timeline Covers

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About

Facebook Timeline Covers are customizable banner images that are strategically placed on Facebook Timeline profiles to serve as extended background for the square-dimension profile photos. The two images are typically framed to appear as if they are interconnected or the portrayed subjects are interacting with each other.

Origin

On September 22nd, 2011, Facebook unveiled a new profile lay out called "Timeline"^[1] during its annual F8 developers conference held in San Francisco, California. The new layout allowed users to add posts to a specified time period and embed a wide cover image (851px × 315px) behind the traditional profile photo (200px x 200px). Prior to its official launch on December 15th, Facebook users could access the new feature early by registering as a developer and creating a Facebook application.

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Spread

On September 28th, 2011, BuzzFeed^[6] published a post titled “Hack Your Facebook Timeline Cover Art”, which featured several staff member’s custom Timeline covers (shown below). On November 19th, the Facebook cover database CoverTimeline^[13] was launched, which curated various categories of Facebook cover images for users to download.

On December 19th, BuzzFeed^[9] published a post titled "13 Beautifully Geeky Facebook Timeline Banners", featuring several illustrations of rage comic characters by artist Sam Spratt. On December 29th, the website Timeline Cover Banner^[8] was launched, which provided a tool for creating custom Timeline cover images. On December 31st, Redditor nattyb79 created the /r/FBcovers^[7] subreddit, where users can share screenshots of their custom Facebook profile images. On January 10th, 2012, the photography blog Twisted Sifter^[10] published a compilation of Facebook Timeline covers including a Droste effect image with Strutting Leo.

On January 26th, the technology news blog Mashable^[12] published a slideshow of notable Facebook Timeline cover examples. On March 29th, the online marketing blog Copyblogger^[11] published a post titled “How to Create a Cover Photo for Your Facebook Timeline”, which offered detailed instructions about required dimensions and Facebook’s guidelines for acceptable content. On June 1st, artist Can Egdridere uploaded a video titled "Can Egridere Facebook Timeline Cover 'Room' Project", which featured a slideshow of illustrated Facebook Timeline covers showing the decoration of a room.