Design Your Facebook Timeline Cover

Just if you didn’t know, Facebook Timeline is the latest feature that was introduced in the recent Facebook Conference, F8. It’s generally a complete overhaul of the profile page with the new ability to view your status updates in a list sorted by time, hence the name.

With this new feature comes a new way of introducing yourself though graphic other than profile photo, and we call it Timeline Cover. And yes, what you can expect is thousands of facebookers try to be creative with their new timeline cover, spawning the hype all over the web.

In this showcase we’re gonna show you 40 awesome and creative timeline covers which either inspire you, amaze you or just make you burst out into laughter.

Also, at the end of the article, we are going to throw in a Facebook time PSD template (updated) to guide you creating one accurately. Have fun with them and enjoy being creative with yours!

Kay Int Veen. Nice use of Polaroid-style photo to introduce the profile owner! The new Facebook Timeline is actually a virtual board for you to show off your creativity, so toy around with it and show to others how creative you are!

Aly Moffatt. Creative photo with creative usage. You won’t know what’s happening by just looking at her photo in status page, but you will get shocked once you see her profile/timeline page!

Andrew Grojean. Yes, this is a timeline cover, see carefully. What a neat and amusing trick!

Nirajan Bom Malla. One of the timeline cover’s tricks that went viral is to use the screenshot of other social media site as the cover. Google+ in Facebook, will this be possible in future?

Antonio Fadda. Brilliant combination of the profile photo and the timeline cover, and yes, it’s creative.

Delphin Hauchard. Nicely adjusted profile photo and the timeline cover, what a great way to show the best moment of life.

Dustin Thaxton. Willing to show not just the single best moment of life? With timeline cover and some Photoshop works you can get more great moments of life glued onto the cover!

Eduardo Calvo. I just like this one. It’s creative, amusing and warmful at the same time.

Emanuele Bartolomucci. Very sleek way of introducing the timeline feature and the profile owner.

Enk Shahbaz Mehdi. People might start selling the timeline cover’s space as ads, will it be possible?

Oliver Alexander. And the Internet does not disappoint you, Enk Shahbaz Mehdi, but I think this was intended to be a good joke. Anyway, poke if interested!

Eyal Shahar. Fake 3D is one of the best tricks to show off your design skills, inspiring work!

Fabio Maravilla. Such a neat and detailed trick! Look at the smallest piece in the profile photo, cute!

Florim I. Qerimi. I thought it was some sort of hypnotism at the first time I’m looking it.

Gianmarco Carrieri. What a simple and sweet integration of profile photo and timeline cover.

Giuseppe Draicchio. You will never know he is doing the contact with the extraterrestrial creature by just looking at his profile photo!

Manoj Varghese Mathew. Feeling less creative? Just draw what you can think of, and it will become a creative cover!

Menteş Nihat Baran. I’m always curious about the difference between touching the alien’s finger and touching the God’s finger.

Helbert Campos. Nice blending between the real life photo and cartoonic graphic, you can even see the page owner’s shadow rendered in the profile photo!

Jeremy Bronson. It’s a big head! But wait, whose head is it? Nice one indeed.

Jerome Vadon. A beautiful way to introduce yourself with a sleek background and some sexy fonts.

Jessica Barnard. Vintage means viral, don’t you know it?

Johnny Gigantic. Probably a masterpiece, except that you won’t get much meaning by just looking at his profile photo.

Jörgen Bröms. With such a serious looking profile photo, you won’t expect his timeline cover to be so amusing.

Robert Falkén. A simple message cloud will tell that you are creative.

Lanfranco Nantele. Another nice attempt with message cloud, but in a more artistic way.

Leo Lee. What will happen if I touch on the profile photo?

Louise Lundberg. The reaction of the photo is just awesome.

Maarten Walraven. You wouldn’t know a shark is approaching him if you didn’t see his timeline cover!

Nagaraj Vijayarangan. And this guy is not as lucky as the one showcased above.

Maurizio Mazzanti. He’s trying to understand what’s happening with his new timeline cover.

Mohammad L. Azzam. Stay hungry, stay foolish, stay creative.

Murat Çizer. I like this one, to be honest.

Niels Langeveld. Perfect integration between the timeline cover and profile photo, it’s royal!

Oliver Elsner. If you want to show your creativity while remaining the professional look, go for this style.

Ori Hasson. You know, classic game never stop to impress people.

Richard Kårström. If my eyes are still functioning well, I can see a guy coming from it.

Rudolfo Nobre. There’s certainly some physic between the timeline cover and the profile photo.

Scott Lamb. It feels good for sure.

Tom Lambie. I’m sure I am a geek as I understand this joke.

Facebook Reveals 2011′s Most-Popular Status Trends

It should come as no surprise to know that the winning strength of any social networking site is the ability to share news about ourselves to our circle of friends. These includes the most common activities that Facebookers engage in, ranging from the posting of photos, commenting on friends’ posts, and perhaps most fundamentally, the updating of statuses. The posting of statuses is the most basic kind of sharing because it only requires the use of words to express ourselves, our thoughts and opinions.
I’m sure you’ve come across various types of Facebook status updates and might have realized that they can be categorized into different genres. If you’ve been observant, you would see that some of your friends tend to post similar kind of posts. This is probably what makes social networking sites so interesting and addictive; we get to infer a person’s character and personality from their posts and even learn to appreciate the individual differences in perspectives.

Ever wonder what type of Facebooker you are? Here are ten of the most common I’ve come across:
1. The Announcers

“Obama just won the election!”
They want to be the first to know and spread the latest and juiciest news. For many of them, they get so excited that they don’t even validate the news they come across first. That’s probably how some infamous rumours (e.g. accidental death of Owen Wilson, etc) proliferate through the extensive network of Facebook.
Yet, we should be grateful that there are unofficial town-criers on Facebook. If the news is indeed true, these are the people who is giving us first-hand information. We get informed about who won the election campaign, which sports team won the championship and numerous other major news like the unexpected passing away of top celebrities and so on, all conveniently in a single place.

2. The Status Reporters

“Waiting for the bus…”
These Facebookers seem to treat their Facebook wall as someone to report their status to. From the moment they wake to the moment they lay back in the warmth of their beds at the end of the day, you can see that they broadcast to the network what they’re up to at any given moment. Not everyone in the list will want to know what you’re doing now, so it may be just a matter of time before they block you from their newsfeed. I suppose it’s best to keep that to a minimal or it’ll just be noise to others.

3. The Bloggers

“Had a bad day. I woke up late this morning and had to take a cab to work. When I reach my workplace, my boss was already by the door waiting for the last person to arrive for work. Got a lecture from him that lasted almost an hour! Never mind that, I was moody the whole day and then I realized I forgot something important. I was supposed to meet Geraldine after work! So I was right there relaxing in my bathtub when I got a call from her. An angry call. She ranted that I didn’t care…”
It used to be the case that status updates are limited to 160 characters. Then they increased it to 420, 500 and even 5,000 characters. As of Nov 2011, the limit is a whooping 60,000! So now, people can post their entire blog entry as their status updates, and this is exactly what Bloggers (in the context of Facebookers) do. They simply tell everyone about how their day went and just go on and on, sometimes not realizing that not many will be fascinated by the nitty-gritty details. Due to the broadcasting nature of status updates, people within their network have no choice but to see them on their newsfeed. Unless of course they block them, which they probably will when it borders at being annoying.

4. The Braggarts & Show-Offs

“How I wish all these companies will stop offering me jobs. Tsk.”
Have you ever tried to boast about your accomplishment but try to keep it modest to others? It can be quite an art. Yet when it’s done in a proper manner, others will find you less annoying than one who can’t seem to stay humble with their words. It’s the same with Facebookers; if they wish to advertise themselves every now and then, they must do it in a subtle manner lest they get labeled as Braggarts & Show-offs.

(Image Source: Fotolia)
I’m all for people being proud of their achievements in life and wanting to share it with the rest of the world. But when it comes to telling everyone, everytime that you’re great in so many different aspects, you create a reputation – a bad one, for yourself. That’s how it is with Braggarts & Show-offs with their self-promoting tendencies. Many of their status updates center around what they’re good at (imaginary or real, it doesn’t matter).
My advice is thus this: Keep it subtle and don’t overdo it.

5. The Quoters & ‘Lyricists’

“Be formless, shapeless, like water — Bruce Lee”
Quoters repeat the words of famous individuals while ‘Lyricists’ quote song lyrics in their status updates. In both circumstances, the updates aren’t exactly their own words. Nevertheless, when they put in the words of others into their updates, it usually relates to their circumstances or at least, their thoughts. Sometimes, such updates serve as puzzles to some, requiring their imaginative interpretations to understand what is really meant by the update.

6. The Philosophers

“The only things you can control in life are your thoughts.”
Philosophers are similar to Quoters & ‘Lyricists’ in that both often create an aura of mystery with their statuses. The major difference is that they don’t simply ‘copy-and-paste’ someone else’s words; they create their own quotes. These Facebookers tend to be an introspective bunch who likes to reflect upon on their life and come up with something that sound abstract yet conclusive from their musings.

I must say I like their status updates because they sound rather genuine. In fact, I myself tend to fall under this category. From time to time, such posts make a lot of sense to me because they make it so relatable by often referring to life as a whole. I can’t say the same for others on whether they like such posts, but I do see it can get pretty irritating to some. They just don’t like to be preached at.

7. The Complaint Kings & Queens

“It’s amazing how many unscrupulous people there are in the world!”
There’s a lot of negative energy comign from this kind of Facebookers, because their status updates revolve around what’s wrong in their lives. Their status updates tend to rally others to complain about the same things that they are complaining about, be it the government or the traffic. Some of these rants can get pretty vulgar in an attempt to draw attention from others.
When a particular facebooker is a chronic complainer, his or her friends may soon realize this fact and stop supporting his or her ’causes’. It gets to the point that they think the facebooker is only complaining for the sake of complaining, so they stop commenting or ‘liking’ the angry statuses. Generally speaking, people don’t go to Facebook to get worked up over life’s stressors, so it’s just a matter of time before these Complaint Kings & Queens get isolated.

8. The EMOs Or Self-Pitiers

“Why must life be so hard on me all the time?”
These are yet another group of Facebookers who thrive on negative energy. Similar to Complaint Kings & Queens, they believe that the world is against them. However, they take a more defensive stance, seeking sympathy from their friends on the network to side with them.
Of course, I’m definitely not saying that all Facebookers who post negative status updates are people who desperately want others to pity them. Even if it is so, it’s perfectly fine to get some comforting and assurance from our dearest friends from time to time. I guess the same principle applies: What annoys Facebookers is the chronic postings of such negative updates, which I had earlier mentioned aren’t exactly what people log in to Facebook to see.

9. The Puzzlers

“I’m still searching, forever searching for my prey.”
Posts by Puzzlers tend to be very ambiguous and can be interpreted in many different ways. Sometimes the intention is to get back at someone subtly; at other times, the update is just a reflection of what’s on their mind at the moment. As you can see from the example above, it can sound a little psychotic.
I suppose Facebookers who do this get a kick from the variety of feedback they may receive as a result of their updates. After all, such updates tend to draw much attention from curious friends within their network. That said, when this is done too frequently, some of these friends may get tired of it and stop commenting altogether.

10. The Comedians

“I just realized that I’m still “it” from a game of tag in 1993?
Perhaps the most likeable kind of updates comes from the Comedians. After all, most people log in to Facebook to be entertained in a light-hearted manner. Many of us don’t want to hear about others feeling sorry about themselves or preaching to them about philosophy; humorous status updates seems more appealing because we just want a break from our daily stress.
A light-hearted approach to life is perhaps the best philosophy for some. I think that when it comes to Facebook, people log in to temporarily escape from something, be it from a boring and mundane task or a particularly stressful day. When we see humour on our newsfeed, it puts our life into perspective. After maybe half an hour of aimless surfing on Facebook (provided we don’t get addicted to it!), we can be back in the right mood to handle what we were handling before.