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Cover image for New Year, New Headers.
Chris Jarvis
Chris Jarvis

Posted on • Updated on

New Year, New Headers.

It's a new new year. Good time to update stuff like header and cover images on your socials.

Here's my previous standard header. If I'm blogging on a project I often use a screen shot as a cover but this was my standard header for other type of blog posts.

It's a list of my contact information. It mimics an editor. But I made it real wide and the sides get cut off. Here just the center part showed on screen. I did this in 2021 so past due for a change.

text with contact inflammation.

This was my 2020 cover. It's a photo I took and added a bit of text to it. I liked this and may re-edit it.

bb-8 peering from behind a crate.my url, Christopher lee jarvis.com, is on the crate.

So here's my newest one. All my contact information. I changed the color and order of them. In addition I resized it to better fit on DEV and other sites.

text christopherleejarvis.com and dev.to @jarvisscript

I used Photoshop for this but there are many options. I experimented with Canva but it looked too generic. So I went to Photoshop and edited the old header image.

Update

I removed the background picture for a cleaner look. Could maybe add something to the left. My Avatar or a one of my CSS images.

text in white and bluechristopherleejarvis.com and dev.to @jarvisscript

Header and Cover image sizes

You can help your branding if you use the same Cover image across your various social media accounts. Each company has different image size and aspect ratios so you have to play with them to get it right.

Here's a table of cover image sizes.

Site Pixel Aspect Ratio
DEV 1000px X 420px 100:42
Mastodon 1500px x 500px 3:1
Twitter 1500px x 500px 3:1
LinkedIn 1546px x 396px 4:1

Size is not the only consideration. Some sites have avatars that overlap the header image. For example on Twitter you need to keep text out of lower left corner or it will be covered by profile image.

I know there are templates out there that adjust for this. I had PSD files that have margins set up for facebook and twitter. They showed where an avatar or frame overlapped the cover image and what was a safe area to use. But those templartes were out of date. The size requirements have since changed.

What do you think?

Are you making any update for the new year? Are yiu changing your resume or portfolio?

What do you prefer the JSON text?, text over a photo?, Minimum text?

Is the BB-8 one professional?

-$JarvisScript git push
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Top comments (1)

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alvaromontoro profile image
Alvaro Montoro

They look really nice. The BB8 one may not be 100% professional, but it's different and perfectly fine. It may make you pop up among other people.