Aleberry Creative

Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 13:52:52 -0400

Yesterday, Facebook rolled out their latest update, called timeline, for everyone, including brands.

Although Facebook has changed their layout multiple times since its initial, college-students-only years, the latest update is the most different. The most visual change is the new cover image that spans the top of your page.

As a brand, it’s important to maintain a consistent visual identity across all media platforms. What’s great about the new cover feature is it allows you to do just that. Your company can tell their story in a visually interesting way at the top of the page.

We’ve been busy designing cover images over the past few weeks. We’ve picked up a few tips and restrictions to keep in mind.

TIPS FOR A GOOD LOOKING TIMELINE:

Make sure your cover image works with your profile picture. Your profile picture will now show up as a square that covers part of the cover. Both items sit closely together, so have a little fun.

Make sure your profile picture looks good as a square. Although you can adjust the thumbnail view, visitors are not likely to click through your image. Keep it simple with a company logo. When you edit the thumbnail view, you can check “Fit to Scale” to make sure your logo isn’t cut off.

Get the right dimensions. Even though Facebook does pixelate the image, your cover should still look good. Design a cover that works as a horizontal image. Make sure to upload a hi-res file.

Tell a story and express your company’s style. Make sure your brand page matches your company’s branding. This your chance to tell your story and engage your audience as soon as they hit your page.

FACEBOOK COVER DIMENSIONS:

Cover images are 851 x 315.

Profile picture thumbnails are 132 x 132 with a 1px solid border.

Personal pages and brand pages have different measurements in relation to where the profile picture sits on top of the cover image.

On brand pages: The profile picture sits about 22 pixels to the left, and 72 pixels up.

On personal pages: The profile picture sits about 22 pixels to the left, and 92 pixels up.

FACEBOOK COVER IMAGE RULES & RESTRICTIONS

These are important things to keep in mind. You don’t want to waste time or money having a cover image designed only to get your Facebook account suspended.

No price or purchase information, including discounts or coupons.
No contact information. This includes websites, addresses, emails, phone numbers, etc. Keep all this in your About section.
No references to Facebook features, such as “Like” or “Share”. No arrows point from the cover to any of these.
No calls to actions (“Get it now” or “Tell your friends”)
It may not be false, deceptive, or misleading. It must not infringe on third parties’ intellectual property. Make sure you own the images, or at least have a right to use them.

Now for the fun part! Here are a few of our designs.

We used our cover to be creative and tell our story on painless perceived legitimacy. We also added a bit of a shadow around where the thumbnail profile picture was.

A take on the classic typewriter keys for a creative copywriting, GlobalWrites.

We wanted to showcase all the aspects this marketing agency, Marketing Refresh, offers. This is one great way to tell your company’s story.

A great local band, Castle Lights, wanted to feature their recent tunes.

For more details on the latest Facebook update, check out Facebook’s Guide.

Our blog + Adobe Muse

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:58:00 -0500

We have been receiving quite a few emails asking us how we setup a blog on our Adobe Muse site.

Unfortunately, we can’t give many of you Musers-to-be the easy step-by-step answer you were hoping for. We actually had a fantastic developer (DesignBigger) help us with this.

We originally used Arbitrary HTML / an iframe of our Tumblr blog. This is one option. It just doesn’t look great on a site.

DesignBigger actually helped us create a WordPress blog that looked like our site, and set it up on our domain.

Hope that answers any questions.

Les Champagnes de Vignerons - event flyers

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:22:42 -0500

UBIFRANCE (the French Trade Commission) contacted us to design print media for a couple upcoming events.

Les Champagnes de Vignerons hosts trade-only events for buyers across the United States.

Our not-so-secret love for all things French & wine made this a perfect project for us.

We were able to have some fun with typography on this flyer. UBIFRANCE have been a great client, allowing us some creative freedom.

Courtney Cachet - Fabulous Lives Here.

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:03:00 -0500

Courtney Cachet is an internationally known designer whose clientele include A-list celebrities, NBC, Huffington Post, Rachel Zoe, and many others. When she’s not working with celebrities and media, she is designing her furniture, jewelry, and electronic accessories lines.

A few months ago, we designed a simple, yet chic new site for her. The site needed to match her motto: “An eye for style and a head for business.”

Built on WordPress, and designed with her style in mind, CourtneyCachet.com integrated a blog, social media, and press for her at ease. (Thanks to Click & Create for easy implementation).

Courtney is a great client to work with. Check out some of her products at courtneycachet.com (You might also win a makeover and Windows Phone)!

ABCG picked by Meghan Thome

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:30:00 -0500

We love when our hard work is appreciated. Earlier this week, a student’s blog picked us as SITE ONE on her source of webdesign inspiration. Very cool.

http://meghanthome.com/2012/01/30/website-design-inspiration/

We’re honored to be listed with Jason Mraz, Invisible Children (a fantastic non-profit), Carsonified, GOOD, and Ryan Scherf.

Thanks Meghan Thome!

Now that I can blog (I’m testing that ability) from a...

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 02:47:38 -0400

Now that I can blog (I’m testing that ability) from a shiny new iPhone, here is the background I made for it after installing the Dropbox app earlier this evening. Feel free to use it if you’re like me and want to be just like me.

Aleberry + Adobe Muse Showcased!

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:32:42 -0400

As mentioned a couple months ago, Aleberry Creative Group had the honor of being taken to the HOW Design Conference in Chicago via Adobe’s “Top Secret Session”.

For the past 30 years, the team at Adobe have been creating amazing products for the design community (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and so much more).

For those of you lucky enough to attend the Conference, you were able to get a sneak peek of Adobe’s latest project “Muse” (code name).

We were lucky enough to snag a beta of this and work with the people at Adobe to create our new website and tweak some things along the way.

Adobe Muse is now available in public beta. Our new website is currently showcased on the official Muse site.

Aleberry Creative on Muse

Muse Showcase

We are excited, and as always Adobe has been a great team to work with. We’d like to thank Adobe once again for everything they have done and continue to do for the design community.

- Aleberry Creative Group

Quoted in: "Righting the Ship With Tough Web Design Clients"

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:22:00 -0400

Quoted in: "Righting the Ship With Tough Web Design Clients":

Gira quoted in a useful article on handling web clients. Some good information for those starting out.

Aleberry + Adobe at HOW Conference!

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:44:32 -0400

If you’ll be at the HOW Design Conference in Chicago this weekend, lucky you! It’s a great event.

For those of you outside the design community, The HOW Design Conference is an annual conference for the creative community. Think SXSW for designers, sponsored by HOW Magazine.

The team at Adobe are always creating amazing products for the design community (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and so much more). Recently, we’ve been lucky enough to work with them on some of these.

Check out their Top Secret session on Saturday, June 24 at 12:15-1:45 at http://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=17015&tabid=26047

Our new website (www.aleberrycreative.com) will be featured during this session. We’re excited, and would like to thank the Adobe team for everything they’ve done for the creative community in the past (almost) 30 years.

- Aleberry Creative Group

New Year, New Site. Better Client Resources.

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:56:30 -0400

Dear Friends of ABCG -

A couple weeks ago, we celebrated another year of Aleberry design! We are excited to celebrate with the launch of a new site & new company features.

www.aleberrycreative.com (same name, better site)! Our site is non-Flash, and viewable on iPads, iPhones, and other mobile devices.

We couldn’t have done any of this without you! So as a thanks for all the love you’ve given us, we’ve streamlined some of the process. Revision forms, initial questionnaires, final design approval forms, and payments may now be submitted via the Contact page. You don’t need to worry about downloading Word documents; we’ll contact you with any additional questions.

As a side note - a few months ago, we also started accepting credit cards.

A new service we are offering is the Daypass. What this means for you: quicker turnarounds with all day (or half-day) collaboration. Check out the Daypass, and let us know if you have any questions.

Thanks for all your love and support over the past years, we hope you’ve enjoyed working with us as much as we have with you!

Gira Desai & William Bradley

We love when our clients get featured. Check out logo treatment...

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:08:30 -0400

We love when our clients get featured. Check out logo treatment for our Sugar Daze Cupcakes logo at end Be Street ICE Shop at Mess Around Paris - Porte de Versailles.

If you live in Paris, France - you must indulge at this Authentic American-style Cupcakery.

Showcased!

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 16:41:00 -0400

Showcased!:

Randomly googled our business (Aleberry Creative) and found we were showcased & critiqued on a site! Pretty sweet !

Wicked Shirts, Random Designers

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:59:00 -0400

Wicked Shirts, Random Designers :

If you like creative / clever t-shirt designs (and you likely do) this is for you. RedBubble is a place for designers to create their own portfolio and sell their designs. Unlike many random t-shirt stores, they actually have a plethora of good designers and reasonable prices! What’s really cool is; if you really dig a design but don’t want to wear it you can simply buy a print.

Sometimes it’s ok to say NO.

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:56:21 -0400

Sometimes it’s ok to say NO.:

Every now and then you may come across clients you wish you had said no to from the beginning. Yes, you may have needed the money or project at the time, but you quickly came to realize that the amount of time, headaches, and discourse with the client equated to triple the amount you charged.

Most designers learn which clients to turn away via trial and error, and multiple headaches. However there are a few red flags to watch out for.

Design a logo like you would a knot.

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 22:10:04 -0400

Design a logo like you would a knot.:

by Aleberry Creative

I like to make analogies whenever possible because they’re usually a great way to make sure people understand what I’m saying. Actually, half of the analogies I make are to help myself remember whatever idea I need to keep following. The logo/knot one is both. Back when I was a Boy Scout we were made to learn endless varieties of knots. Most of them I…

Motion by Design

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:40:30 -0400

Motion by Design :

UK based designer Simon C. Page, recently released a set of album covers inspired by the music they represent. They’re pretty wicked and demonstrate his broad range of styles. You can browse through the whole collection on his Flickr here . The cover designed for The Avalanches’ album “Since I Left You” does a particularly great job of creating a sense of motion for the on-looker.

UglyBaby.co.uk article by Aleberry creative Group

Spec Work & Crowdsourcing, what’s the big deal?

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:44:10 -0400

Spec Work & Crowdsourcing, what’s the big deal?:

Aleberry Creative’s first article / contribution to Ugly Baby Magazine!

Houston!

Mon, 31 May 2010 23:23:00 -0400

Aleberry Creative has officially moved to Houston, TX as of Saturday!

We’re excited to move into our office tomorrow and start our new venture in the great city of Houston!

This blog will serve as your one-stop shop for design, Aleberry, and Houston resources. We want to share with you what we discover from both a design and a young professional perspective. We’re always looking for new places to check out and review so feel free to email / tweet us any of your favorite spots: info@aleberrycreative.com or @aleberrygroup