when a thousand words aren't enough

Before MySpace stopped being "a place for friends" and became the estranged, less-educated step-sister to Facebook, its users (n/k/a Facebook users) had free reign over the look and layout of their pages- except for that area at the top of the page reserved for advertisers. Sure, users could tweak the CSS to cover the ad space, but at the risk of being forever banned from Myspace. (Life without Myspace? How does one carry on?)

Enter Facebook and its timeline everyone loves so much (wink, nudge).  I won't address the negatives of the timeline, but I will address two of its better features: the ability to add milestone events to your timeline (you know, in case you won the Nobel Peace Prize or America's Next Top Model before you joined Facebook) and the ability to have not one but TWO profile pictures.  That real estate that Myspace labeled as hands-off is all yours on Facebook, and using it is as simple as uploading a photo.  No CSS, FMBL, etc., required. But ensuring that your image appears exactly as you intended requires a bit more effort on your part than clicking the upload button.

You want this:

But you have this:

For help with perfecting your image, see this article on best practices.  Also, a PSD template is especially helpful in sizing and optimizing your image.

If you want to take things up a notch and get creative with your cover photo, check out these covers (here & here) for some inspiration.  Enjoy!