How to Make a Creative Cover Photo

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Threadless Artist Shops may all be pretty different online outlets. But the one thing they (and most social media outlets) have in common is that you can add a cover photo to the top of your page. Cover photos are a relief for those of us who are indecisive when picking out our profile picture. But besides being fun and cool-looking, cover photos can also be a great tool to uniquely advertise your art! Here are a few examples of how to make a creative cover photo.

Creative Cover Photo Examples

Feature multiple designs

Even though cover photos give you an extra spot to feature a photo, sometimes just one design for a cover photo still doesn’t feel like enough.

The solution to cover photo indecisiveness? Don’t decide! Make a collage of a bunch of your designs that you want to feature at the top of your page.

Here are a few ways you can do that (and see examples below):

  • Lining up a few of your designs that go together nicely, like Luke Flowers’ Twitter account
  • Make a collage of a bunch of the designs you offer – or will offer (like a little preview) – kind of like Gintron’s Threadless Artist Shop cover photo
  • You can make your profile picture and cover photo similar designs that you’re proud of, are new, or go well together. Check out how Tara McPherson does that with her Facebook page and her Twitter account
  • Make a clean collage lining up a bunch of your designs, and try putting your logo over it. This further frees up your profile picture area by using your logo in your cover photo alongside your designs. Dandingeroz did this in a really cool way with their Artist Shop
  • Include designs you’re thinking about offering in a cover photo collage alongside products you offer to test them out – if you get a lot of requests to make it a product, you have your next item to sell!

LUKE FLOWERS (Twitter)

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GINTRON (Artist Shop) 

CR_coverphoto_gintron TARA MCPHERSON (Facebook)

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 DANDINGEROZ (Artist Shop) 

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Make a custom illustration for your cover photo

Featuring designs you’re selling is a great way to advertise them in your cover photo. But if you have a unique style, a cool character as your logo, or even a design you want to have some fun with, try creating a custom illustration for your cover photo.

This allows you an opportunity to customize the hell outta your cover photo. You can have a single, cool custom illustration, have a few of your illustrations that best represent you floating around your cover photo (like Luke Pelletier’s), you can have your logo/profile picture fade into your cover photo, and in Artist Shops you can even make a custom illustration that becomes your whole shop background (see Santiago Robles’ shop!)

One of the coolest things to see with Artist Shops has been the insane amount of variety in how people use their cover photo. Here are a few that stood out to us:

SANTIAGO ROBLES (Artist Shop)

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PEIPER (Artist Shop)

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JEREMYVILLE (Artist Shop)

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LUKE PELLETIER (Artist Shop) 

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Customize and update it to advertise sales 

If you’re having a sale, using your cover photo is a great way to make that sale the first thing people see when they go to your page. If the sale is seasonal or themed, you can customize your cover photo to go along with the sale’s theme. The possibilities here are super open-ended, but here’s an example of this:

MENABO (Artist Shop)

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Use it to advertise your other social media accounts

Just like Twitter limits characters in a tweet, they also limit how many other outlets you can link to. You get one website link and whatever you can fit into the tiny description area in your bio. And on Facebook, your extra information isn’t available at first site – you have to find it in the “About” section.

Cheat this system by including and featuring your other social media outlets in your cover photo like these artists did:

ND TANK (Artist Shop) 

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 ALEX PARDEE (Artist Shop)

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Show off your product

Sometimes the best way to make a highly creative cover photo is to give people an idea of the type of lifestyle you’re selling or how your product looks. Use your cover photo to show off some awesome lifestyle shots of people modeling your product. Or, let’s say you dabble in other art mediums (like Danobanano and his patches (see below)) that go along with your apparel – use your cover photo to show these off as well. This also cross-advertises your apparel with other products you might not be able to sell on the same site.

DANOBANANO (Artist Shop)

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BURRITO GOBLIN (Artist shop)

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MR. CHILLUSTRATOR (Artist shop)

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Sign up for your own Artist Shop here and share what you do with your creative cover photo!

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We’re an artist community built on the power of helping each other succeed — if you’re reading this and have tips of your own to share, please do so in the comments! Thank you!

Illustrations done by the amazing Katie Lukes

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