Keep Your Old Facebook Profile With A Creative Timeline Design

Create a Timeline cover photo to look like the old Facebook.Ever since I opened my Facebook profile to the public, I’ve enjoyed connecting with people from all over the world. I’ve noticed one of the recurring topics of conversation with people is Facebook’s latest change, Timeline. Since Facebook decided to change the profile layout (again…) the new profile has been gradually rolled out over the last few months, and many users have been inquiring about my cover photo featured on the first Mashable Timeline gallery.

Rather than answer each inquiry individually, I decided to make a template that can be easily used to design anyone’s cover photo to make it look like the “old” profile. If you play a quick game of Spot the Differences you’ll see that several parts of the design (no profile picture, the “Write Something…” box, the “Friends” star) look different than your old profile—this is by design. It is meant to look like what your friends saw when visiting that profile.

Since you cannot go back and take a screenshot of your old profile if you already have Timeline, this template enables you to still have the old design. It should only take 5-10 minutes if you are familiar with Photoshop, but if you are using a program like Microsoft Paint it might take a little longer since you will have to manually trim down your five thumbnail photos (100 pixels wide by 70 pixels high).

Download my Photoshop template by right clicking Old Facebook Timeline Template and selecting “Download Linked File As…”.

Old Facebook Timeline Template - Andrew Grojean

I’ve sized the photo 850×315 pixels, the exact dimensions of the cover photo. Each thumbnail picture is its own layer. All you have to do is select a layer, shrink a photo down to your desired size and position the photo behind the appropriate frame. Repeat five times.

Here is what it looks like filled out with my information and pictures.

Old Facebook Cover Photo - Andrew Grojean

For the descriptions, you simply choose the description you want to modify from the layers section (education, occupations, etc.). Then select the text edit tool (the button that looks like a big letter T), and double-click on the description in the photo. Now you can edit the description to make it unique to you! If you want to add any other sections, Facebook uses size 11 point font Lucida Grande.

Now just upload to your Timeline (as seen below) and you have a final product! Have fun keeping your “old” profile and making your friends do a double take when they see your cover photo.

Timeline Design complete! Note: If the text in this picture is a little blurry, that is because this is a picture within a picture within a picture within a picture. You are bound to lose a bit of sharpness when you go Inception on your photos.

Cover photo complete! Note: If the text in the above picture is a little blurry, that is because this is a picture within a picture within a picture within a picture. You are bound to lose a bit of sharpness when you go Inception on your photos.

Was this template helpful? Post a link to your new design below, and if you still have any questions, leave them in the comments.

Happy designing!

Andrew

About Andrew Grojean

Andrew is an Associate Director of Innovation at a digital marketing agency in KC, interested in all things social media, pop culture, sports, and technology.

32 comments

  1. Good Morning;

    I am Sherif Simo Styliss from Morocco (pretty far away isn’t it?!! lol) I really like your work Andrew. Carry on 🙂

    Greetings from Marrakesh <3

  2. Its really a worthy piece of work… Hats off to you!!!

  3. abdul motalab shikder rana

    timeline remover and old profil again.help

  4. nice,tnx andrew

  5. Thanks for sharing! awesome. Will take advantage of this once I am forced to get the Timeline profile. I’ve been resisting. Your template will make me a little less grumpy during my forced transition. 🙂

  6. Seems really cool, but I’m having trouble getting pictures on there. Am I supposed to be using a certain type of program? I’m trying do this with Adobe Photoshop.

    • Hi Desi, Adobe Photoshop is the correct program. Right click the “Old Facebook Timeline Template” and click “Save Link As…” or the appropriate option. The file you will download is a .psd, so it should work in any version of Photoshop. From there, just follow the instructions on the template. Let me know when you finish the design!

  7. hi andrew..do you have any video tutorial for this kind of creating timeline cover?? 🙂

  8. yes!! i make it!! this is my timeline now.. 😛

  9. Hi andrew, luv your template.. Can i do this on ipad?

    • Hi FashionLink. As far as I know, my template only works with Photoshop on desktops, not on iPads. However, if you have a photo and text editor, you can copy the cover photo above, replace the photos with yours, and add the appropriate text. I’ll probably create a tutorial for people without Photoshop soon.

      • Hey Andrew, I downloded the template on Photoshop. I was able to add pictures to all the places except, the begining and the end. When I add a picture, you can still see the words”Insert pictures here”…What am I doing wrong?

        • Hi Rob, I created separate layers in the template for text, describing where the pictures go. To delete the text, just open up the Layers section of the toolbox in Photoshop and remove the text layers you don’t want appearing by clicking the trashcan or pressing the Delete button after selecting the layer. Alternatively, you can drag your image layer above the text layer in that section and it will hide the text. Let me know if you have any more questions, and feel free to share when complete!

  10. Hello Andrew, can u give me An idea of a cover photo for my online shop. Thanks

  11. andrew,
    how do i start making my timeline cover?

  12. Andrew,
    Can U Make Me Some One?

  13. 1 question, which phuto editor did you use?

  14. with photo editor did you use?

  15. can u upload a video tutorial plz plz

  16. I want to do something like to for my FB but its not letting me. Help?? please??? thank you 🙂

  17. Hai Mr. Andrew,

    I really liked your timeline design. I also wanna make a timeline cover like this, but I dont have photoshop installed in my system. If I send you all my details to be filled in, can you please send make and send me the file.?. I will be much thankful to you if you could do this for me.
    You may send the file to my yahoo id.

    Best regards,
    Santosh

  18. thanks this is really helpful

  19. well.. interesting, thumbs up for the idea.. so great!!

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