New cover of the VKontakte group. VKontakte group cover size

The cover for the VKontakte group is a new design element for the group after the redesign. It seems like it should be easy to take one image, but at the same time finding the perfect one is quite difficult.

The VKontakte cover is one of the first things people will see when visiting your group. That is why it is so important to make a good impression on the visitor, convey a clear understanding of the group’s theme and interest.

In April 2017, it became available to communities. This is a completely new feature and an excellent opportunity to revive (in the literal sense of the word) the design of your group in order to increase the efficiency and impact of promotion.

You will get three things from this article:

• Cover size for VKontakte group;
• Instructions on how to create a VKontakte cover and how to choose the perfect picture;
• Examples of groups with high-quality covers.

What size is the cover for a VKontakte group?

The optimal image size for a VKontakte cover may vary. On computers, the cover image is displayed at 795 pixels wide and 200 pixels high. On mobile phones it adjusts proportionally to the width of the screen. However, VKontakte recommends uploading a picture with a size of at least 1590x400 pixels.

Advice: If you find an image you really like, but its proportions are not the recommended ones, you can still use it! By uploading this picture, you can select the visible area and trim off all unnecessary parts using internal VKontakte tools.

When developing a cover design, keep in mind that on mobile devices with a screen width of less than 400px, the edges of the image are cropped at 196px, and approximately 83px is occupied by the phone’s system icons. Consider convenience for mobile users. On VKontakte these are the majority.

Make sure that the text on the cover is sufficiently readable on the mobile phone screen when the cover adapts to its width. Also check that important elements on the cover are not obscured by menu icons and personal messages.

Below is a visual example of what the cover looks like on a computer, and the dimensions from the edge to the active elements of the group are indicated.

How to make a cover for a VKontakte group

If you have any design skills, create your own cover from scratch using software such as Adobe Photoshop. Choosing this path will allow you to create the design for your business the way you imagine it.

If you don’t want to buy and learn Photoshop, then use online services. Here . At the moment this is the most popular service.

Cover templates for VKontakte group

In order to help you with design development, we have created a template for the cover of a group in VK (1590x400px).

Let's talk about a few additional details about working with our template:

• When you open the template, you will see the appearance of your design. You don't have to upload the cover to the group to evaluate how it looks.
• To create your own cover, double-click on the “cover” layer. This will take you inside the smart object.
• Then you can start creating, all sizes are indicated inside.

You can download this and other templates in the article:.

Your photos

We understand that everyone cannot be a designer. But this does not mean that not everyone can have a beautiful VK community cover. Here are some places you can look to create your header, as well as some tips to show that this approach can make sense for you and your business.

For example, if your group is about books, then you can take a photo of your bookshelves and use that photo as the cover photo. This will hint that you're into books, and you can expect other book fans to respond well to the photo.

Stock photos

If you don't have any personal photos that you would like to use, look for them on photo stocks (sites with free images), there you can find the perfect image for the VK community cover. My favorite sites for finding beautiful photos are Unsplash and Pixabay.

I would like to encourage you to modify/enhance all selected photos to make them more personal. You can use the tools of online editors Fotor, Pablo or Canva. If you want, you can even improve your photography with these tools. For example, choose one of your favorite quotes and add it over the photo.

How to choose a cover

Now that we know how to make a cover for a VKontakte group, the question is what content to choose for it? Are there photos that work better than others?

Let's look at some important points:

• Maintain the required cover dimensions (1590px width and 400px height);
• Choose high quality images;
• Don't overload the image with visual elements;
• Choose a picture for the cover, focusing on the general design of the VKontakte group;
• Use images that are original and relevant to your brand.

What type of images attract people

Here are some components that make images captivating:

• Emotions: feelings make people act;
• Relevance: including what suits the interests of your audience;
• Colors: choosing the right colors leads to increased conversions;
• Typography: Choosing the right font makes your message clear;
• Hashtags and text: Find the right words that will provoke your audience to take the target action.

These components can be used when creating a VKontakte community cover to make people feel a certain way or take specific actions.

For example, Coca-Cola uses the common red logo on the cover with the caption “taste... feel”, and as a background a happy couple holding a drink. This is, of course, in the hope of getting people to make some kind of connection in the mind that drinking cola means happiness. And it's effective!

Where are people looking?

When coming up with the perfect cover, it can be interesting to look at some research. I managed to find something interesting on this issue. It is in English, but I will briefly convey the essence.

It has been found that if you want to draw attention to a specific element in an image, then, using the principle of visual queue, the gaze of the person in the photo looking at the element will direct the viewer to that place. This could be an interesting way to use a person's perspective in a VKontakte group cover.

Kissmetrics also found that adding an element that “pops” in the cover can be effective. The important thing is that there should be one such element and one that calls for action.

In the example below, Electronic Arts knows this and makes it clear to people that they can buy the new FIFA17 game.

Thinking outside the box

Covers for the VKontakte group have become a great way to express yourself, a way to stand out. Here are some original ways.

Examples of groups with high-quality covers

Now that we know how to make a good cover for a VKontakte group, we can take a look at some pages that use high-quality and simple images. We hope you find some inspiration in them.

Because we now do custom work, we will be able to answer your questions about the design of social networks if you have them. Feel free to send them to our email or write them right here in the comments. Together we can make the perfect cover for your VKontakte group and increase the impact of your efforts to promote it.

It's no secret that they are very popular today. People create new communities, try to develop them, gain a huge number of subscribers, etc. Any public administrator will tell you that visual design is very important and should not be neglected.

In this material we will talk about the appearance of the community, namely how to make a cover for a VKontakte group online and what their significance is.

online is a horizontal photo, image or screensaver (static or dynamic), which is located in the community header.

By default, when creating a group, there is no background. You can download or delete it at any time (read step-by-step instructions below).

Any person who visits a community page first of all sees the background (if there is one). This fact is quite enough to understand that its role is great. After all, she is responsible for the first impression of the group. And, as you yourself know, the first impression is the most important.

The background is the face of the group and reflects the attitude of the creators, both to the community itself and to subscribers. Below we will look at successful and interesting examples that helped not only give the VK public an interesting appearance, but also attract new participants.

How to download?

At first, as soon as this innovation was introduced, many wondered: how to put this cover?

Now we will explain in detail how to properly upload a background online.

First, you will need JPG, GIF or PNG files. These are the main and most popular image formats, so finding them won't be difficult.

Secondly, the exact dimensions of the image are 1590 x 400 pixels (the social network itself recommends uploading files with exactly these dimensions). Basically, exact dimensions are used when creating images in graphic editors (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.). You, of course, can use any other size.

It is important to understand here that if you upload a smaller size, the quality on larger monitors will be significantly worse. And with a larger size, you will need to select a specific part of the picture, or select an exact match from the formats. Therefore, we agree with VKontakte and also recommend using dimensions of 1590 x 400 pixels.

Now the instructions themselves (You must be the owner or administrator):

1. On the public page, click the button with three dots and select “Community Management”;

1. Next, in the “settings” section, find the line “Community Cover” and click the “Download” button;

1. In the window that opens, click the “Select file” button and select the file itself on your computer, in accordance with the recommendations;

1. Next, select the visible part (if the image dimensions are inaccurate) and click the “Save and Continue” button;

1. It is important to understand that the background has not yet appeared on the group page. In order for it to be displayed, you must confirm your actions again by clicking the “Save” button.
2. Enjoy the results!

After these steps, your group will look completely different and users will be more willing to subscribe to you.

Also, when you hover over the cover, three buttons appear in the upper right corner:

• Download (if you want to install a new one);
• Edit (if you want to customize the current one);
• Delete.

Species

As soon as this technology appeared, all categorization implied only differences in the pictures themselves (regular, bright, spam, with text, etc.).

Today, thanks to innovations in the visual design of groups, backgrounds are no longer static, various widgets and modules appear that allow the use of dynamic backgrounds. They can show various information that changes over time (for example, last subscriber or most active member, etc.).

Conventionally, all backgrounds can be divided into:

• Static;
• Dynamic.

Let's take a closer look at each of them.

How to make a static cover?

To create a static background, you can make do with ready-made options, which are abundant on the Internet. Now you just need to enter the search query “Covers for VK groups” and you will receive a list of sites offering free download of ready-made templates. There are pictures for every taste and any topic. They also already have the recommended dimensions of 1590 x 400. Or you can take any high-quality image.

A good site where you can download ready-made templates – vk –oblozhki .ru

But, as a rule, it is just a photo/picture, without titles or any other information.

If you want to get a unique background that will contain certain information about your brand/company/community, then you will have to create it from scratch.

If you have a sufficient budget, you can hire a professional who will do everything at the highest level. If you don’t have a budget, then you can do it yourself.

If you have skills in working with graphic editors, you can do this in Photoshop, illustrator or another editor. We advise you to always save your work in PSD (PhotoshopDocument) format. Thus, your image will be raster and can be adjusted to any size without loss of quality.

If you don’t have such skills, then you can use special services, thanks to which you can create a beautiful design in a few clicks. These are services such as:

• com;
• com.

These are the most popular projects among their analogues.

How to make a dynamic cover?

Creating dynamic covers is actually not as difficult as it might seem at first glance.

Today there are many projects online that offer their services for creating beautiful, interesting and effective dynamic covers. You can add various widgets and timers that will be visible to all group members. And all this in a couple of clicks.

Most popular services:

• DynamicCover ;
• BoomCover ;
• Revoc;
• Line-Cover.

All of them have the opportunity to try their services for free. For some, the trial period ends and you need to pay, and for some, you can continue to use the service for free, but with limited capabilities.

The approximate cost of such services is 100 rubles/month.

Below we present a list of our tips and recommendations:

1. Use dynamic covers only when necessary. Dynamic covers don't always look pretty. Especially when they have too many different widgets. Sometimes putting a simple image, with or without text, is the best option.
2. Use small signs like “Subscribe” or “Ask your question” that will succinctly fit into the overall design, above the corresponding buttons. They will encourage users to take action.

1. Don't use spam covers. They too often cause negativity among users.

1. Don't cram the cover with information that won't be used in any way. For example, it is unlikely that anyone will manually retype your website address or call your number. First of all, you have to like the cover!
   This kind of information is appropriate when it fits harmoniously into the overall design (as in the example below).

1. If you have the opportunity to pay, use the help of professionals who can fully organize your community.

Examples of successful work

In fact, there are a lot of good examples. We will show only a few works.

1. Simple beautiful image. Considering that this public site specializes in beautiful pictures, photos are a suitable option.

1. A very successful use of a dynamic cover. Here the creators of the group installed a timer that counts down the time until the end of the promotion, as well as a widget showing the last person to sign up.

1. A static image designed for a specific brand. Stylish and beautiful.

1. An excellent example of how to briefly describe the activities of a group without using words. This public page used icons. As soon as you come in and see this cover, you immediately understand what kind of content is published here.
[Total votes: 2 Average: 5/5]

With the advent of the social network VKontakte, entrepreneurs began to actively launch businesses on the Internet and look for new sources of income - groups and public pages became a tool for earning money. The cover of a VKontakte group is not just a beautiful picture - it is a business card for your clients. The better you package your community, the greater the chance that they will order from you and not from your competitors.

Clothing store cover designed in our graphic design studio

The cover of the VKontakte group is a small part of the necessary design and, if you are just trying yourself as an online businessman, this is the cheapest packaging option. Ideally, a VKontakte group or public page should contain: a catchy advertising banner (it opens the menu), a cover, a menu (navigation or wiki landing), beautifully designed products and photo album covers, as well as branded posts. All this creates the face of your business and affects how customers perceive you.

What to place on the cover of a VKontakte group:

When designing the cover of a VKontakte group, consider the mobile version. If the design is heavily cropped, important points will be hidden (contacts, services, logo, etc.), you will lose some customers. On PCs and laptops, the cover is displayed in full, but on mobile phones it is cropped on the left and right by 197 px and darkened on top by 83 px.

Don't overload the band cover with information. It should be easy but informative!

Where can I order a cover design?

You can order the design of a VKontakte group cover from a designer on a freelance exchange, find an artist on social networks, or search for a web studio’s website on the Internet.

Each of these methods has its own characteristics. You will save money on the freelance exchange, but in most cases you will find a novice or student designer. Experienced, selected designers work for the web studio, but the studio will also receive its own benefit from the order. It’s easier to place an order through VKontakte groups - you immediately see the designer’s work and compare the prices of several artists.

On the service market, prices for designing a VKontakte cover range from 500 to 3,500 rubles. and it's not just like that. Beginners work cheaper, but their level is not high; studios are intermediaries and work with a markup; and successful popular designers work for themselves.

How to set the cover to a group?

In your group, in the upper right corner of the screen under the “avatar” there are three dots “…”, click on them and in the window that appears, select the “Community Management” section, in it under the information about the group you will see the inscription: “Community cover” and actions "Download" and "Delete". Add a cover and return to the main page to look at the result.

When the cover is installed, you can replace it at any time by simply hovering over it with the mouse cursor and selecting the “Load, edit or delete cover” action. You can find out more about how to put a cover in a group in our video:

Examples of our work on the design of “what was then” groups

While setting up my groups and helping friends, I found it inconvenient to remember the recommended sizes every time. At first I wrote them down in notes, and later I decided to make myself templates, which I share with you.

The archive contains three templates: for VK, Facebook and YouTube. Files in PSD format (Photoshop). They have the recommended size and already arranged guides for different screen sizes (desktop computers and mobile devices).

Markup for the VKontakte group/public header

I want to immediately warn you that on mobile devices the header is cut off at the edges and a little at the top. VK does not write anything about this when loading the cover. Using scientific research, I determined the width of the safe area to be 1200 px (internal layout guides). If it turns out that I missed the mark, please let me know in the comments. I'll correct it.

Facebook group/public cover markup

• 820×312 px for desktop computers,
• 640×360 px for mobile devices,
• 851x315 px, but this size is considered optimal and the fastest loading.

For some reason, the mobile size is larger than the recommended cover size for PC. I made the layout size 851x360.

Youtube channel cover layout

• 2560x1440 px for TVs,
• 2560x423 px for desktop computers and laptops,
• 1855×423 px for tablets,
• 1546×423 px for mobile.

Here, as in the case of VK, the sizes for mobile devices do not match. I haven’t done any scientific research, but I recommend making larger margins from the internal guides. If you place something in the center, place it three-quarters wide. I think you won't miss it. And I will also be grateful if you share your sizes from personal experience in the comments.

That's all. I hope you find it useful. Ask in the comments if anything is unclear. Good luck in your creativity!

Surely you have already appreciated the innovation of the VKontakte network - the cover of public pages and communities. A fairly large photo banner that opens in front of the user the moment he enters the group. What is this for? The banner attracts attention and allows you to briefly and clearly tell about the community, its interests, and features. Often this is the factor that attracts the user to subscribe to the public page and further view its posts in the news feed. But how to make a group cover on VK so that it is beautiful and attractive? We will give you the most useful recommendations.

Correct community header

Before you make the cover of a group on VK, you need to decide: what should it express? We will give you some relevant tips to achieve your goal:

• Unusuality. The cover is what your current or future subscriber sees first. If it contains a unique feature, surprises with its design, includes an interesting play on words, an intriguing story, then everything indicated will only benefit you. Many people use such an interesting cover format for the VK group as a continuation of what is depicted on it in the attached inscription on the wall.
• Trends. The banner must be modern. As a last resort - classic. But not a “accordion” - it contains elements of what was once relevant in the Internet environment. Therefore, it is worth thinking about framing it in the spirit of the latest events discussed, a recently released film, and adding the participation of heroes of memes that are popular today. It goes without saying that the covers in this case need to be updated periodically.
• Use easy psychological techniques to help you pay attention. For example, an image of a person looking in a certain direction - where you have placed important information - is quite effective.

What should a hat not be like?

Let's look at how to make a group cover on VK so that it does not evoke negative emotions among community visitors:

• Nobody likes spam banners - memes with requests to join a group. In the overwhelming majority of cases, even if the idea is presented in a rather original way, users ignore the calls.
• If you want to indicate in the header a list of the services you provide, then the idea is obviously a failure. Maybe it’s worth hinting at them intriguingly with comics, collages, photographs?
• Indicating a contact phone number in the banner, or even worse, a link to another site, is tantamount to handing out leaflets at the crossing. No one will retype the link from the image into the address bar. It is better to dedicate a separate post to your contacts, a section that will always be visible to users, from where it is convenient and easy to copy the necessary information.

What should a good cover look like?

So, when creating, photographing or searching for the right stock image, keep the following in mind:

• The community hat should contain an unspoken call to a certain action, emotion.
• The image must be relevant to your audience.
• Choose pleasant, calm colors or, on the contrary, bright, acidic colors - it all depends on the specifics of the group.
• Don’t ignore the font either: don’t settle for boring “Word” variations, but don’t go towards writing that, due to its quirkiness, can be difficult to make out.
• Don’t forget about the semantic load and the correct hashtags.

Now let's look at more specific variations:

• Using an image of a famous person advertising your community or product.
• The consonance of the hat with high-profile events, holidays, activities, promotions - both general and related only to your group.
• The content of an unspoken attractive call to switch to another resource (make sure that the transition is easy and understandable for the user).
• Placement in the header of a special offer, the main news of the public.

About cover size

As you noticed, the banner parameters are not standard when compared with the usual avatars. In order for the image you choose to look good, the size of the VK group cover should be as close as possible to 1590 x 400 pixels. Such parameters for a banner can be set in advance when creating it in a graphic editor.

When creating a collage, you need to consider how the picture will be reflected on subscribers’ devices, so as not to place the necessary information in areas that will be hidden:

• In a computer browser - 795 x 200 pixels. The image is not cropped, but only compressed.
• As for mobile devices, the header is displayed slightly differently. It is trimmed according to the width of the device screen. For example, if the latter is 400 pixels, then your cover image will be trimmed by 146 pixels on each edge. Add more space allocated for system buttons. Because of it, the banner will become 80-140 pixels narrower on each edge.

Easy cover creation

Let's look at the easiest way to make a group cover in VK:

• Take a photo that somehow resonates with your community's theme.
• Find a suitable stock image in Google, Yandex.Images, and other resources. Beautiful covers for a group on VK can be found using a similar request.
• If you think that the image is too detached, then you can fill it with new elements and text in such popular online editors as Fotor, Pablo or Canva.

Creation in Photoshop

The best program for VK group covers and for visual design in general remains Photoshop. However, you should turn to its help if you are a fairly confident user and know how to create high-quality collages, process photos, cut out objects, work with layers, corrections and filters. Otherwise, you risk getting a low-quality cover with a bunch of mistakes, which will not please or attract your potential audience.

So, having entered the program, click on “File”, then “Create”. For the cover it is better to set the following parameters:

• Size: 1590 x 400 pixels.
• Resolution: 72 pixels in 1 inch.
• Color mode: RGB (8 bit).

And then there is room for creativity: create layers from stock or personal images, cut out certain objects, add text, use filters and program tools. The main thing is to have a clear plan in your head for what you want to get in the end.

How to set the cover in a group on VK?

Let's first figure out how to generally change the banner in the community of which you are the administrator:

1. Under your group's avatar, on the right side of the page, click on the three dots "..."
2. A drop-down window will appear in front of you. In it, select "Community Management".
3. An administrator window will open. Find the "Settings" section and click on it.
4. You will immediately see the line “Community Cover”. That's what we need.
5. How to add a cover to a VK group? Just click on "Download".
6. You will see brief recommendations on the image format and size of the VK group cover.
7. It is worth choosing a high-quality, high-resolution photo.
8. Here, as when choosing an avatar, you have the opportunity to choose which area of ​​the image to place on the cover: use the mouse to move the bounding rectangle to stop at the most successful area. By the way, the photo can be turned upside down.
9. Be sure to click on “Save and Continue” on the cover window. Don't rush to close the page!
10. In the settings window, do not forget to click on “Save”.

Now you can look at what happened!

Editing the cover

We have also prepared a number of tips in case you want to edit, change, or delete an image. To do this, you just need to hover your mouse (if you are an administrator) over the banner. Three schematic prompts will appear:

• "Upload" - installing a new photo. You already know how to add a cover to a VK group.
• "Edit" - rotate the image, change the area that will be visible in the banner.
• "Delete" - remove the existing cover.

We analyzed the creation and publication of the cover in the VKontakte group from idea to concrete implementation. We hope that these recommendations will help you create a wonderful banner!