As you probably know, Facebook’s new Timeline design went live for everyone – like it or not – this week.

If you're like me and you got a panicked phone call from a client at the last minute, asking for help on their Facebook timeline images, or you procrastinated on your own personal, professional, or solo PR pro timeline cover designs, (also like me), this post is designed to provide emergency help to the non-designers out there (you guessed it… that’s me!).

These are stop-gap measures that will buy you some time until you can work with a designer to improve the overall look and feel of your Facebook Timeline presence.

Square Logo?

Most organizations use a logo for their Profile icon, which is now included as the small square inset at the top of the page. While much has been made about the challenges of the larger cover photo, for businesses, the square logo requirements of 180×180 pixels is often the most problematic. If the logo is rectangular in nature, Facebook will stretch and squish it to make it fit, usually resulting in very bizarre looking images.

Use our emergency cheat below to fix it, using Picknik (until it goes dark on April 19) and/or good old PowerPoint:

Picknik (or the image editing tool of your choice)

1. Upload your logo to Picknik, and use the crop tool to remove unnecessary space around the key design elements (provided your client’s branding guidelines don’t prevent this)
2. To take it a step further, you can also take key brand elements of the logo and add text to the image in Picknik, creating a makeshift square version of the logo

PowerPoint

1. In PowerPoint, draw a rectangle
2. Right click and select “size and position”
3. Change the dimensions to  2.4 x 2.4 inches
4. Make the Fill color consistent with your brand identity
5. Insert your logo as a picture and size/position it so that it appears centered within the square
6. Right-click and select “save as picture”
7. Upload as your page’s Profile image in Facebook

For Solo PR PRO Premium members, we’ve done this work for you and uploaded a template for your use.

Cover Image

A number of sites have posted Photoshop Facebook templates to use, however if you are not a Photoshop user, there are other ways to cheat this. One caveat: make sure you’re aware that Facebook has guidelines around what can be in the cover image. Basically, they don’t want these images to be cheesy, word-filled (“buy it now!”) electronic billboards.

Use a Template

There are some easy-to-use (and free) Facebook cover template sites. If you’ve ever created a photo holiday card online, the tools will probably feel familiar to you. These templates generally ask for permission to post to your Facebook page, and they’ll add an update stating you’ve used their app. They’ll also probably include a small logo as part of your cover image. I used Cover Photo Magic for my personal page, and it was very simple and quick to do.

While this method is most applicable to an individual page, some solo PR pro pages and small businesses may be able to use them as well. For example, a restaurant or retail store may be able to post images of their location within a template.

PowerPoint

Similar to the method described above for a Profile image, PowerPoint can be even more helpful when you’re trying to build a cover image.

1. In PowerPoint, draw a rectangle
2. Right click and select “size and position”
3. Change the dimensions to  2.1 x 5.66 inches
4. Make the Fill color consistent with your brand identity
5. Insert an image or images and size/position them so they’re aesthetically pleasing within the rectangle. You can use existing client/product images, or use stock photos that capture the essence of the brand.
6. Right-click and select “save as picture”
7. Upload as your page’s cover image in Facebook

For Solo PR PRO Premium members, this work is also done and included in the premium template available for you to download.

As noted above, these methods won’t replace a designer. But if you or your client are staring at a wonky-looking Profile image and a blank gray cover image on your Facebook page, these emergency measures just might fit the bill!

Have you uncovered any other methods for addressing the Facebook Timeline design changes?