Jez Burrows reveals how he designed these vibrant themes to get your events noticed.
Got a party coming up and want to tell people about it? Probably the easiest way to get everyone's attention is to create a Facebook event and invite them along. That's why Jez Burrows helped design these new cover art themes to get your event seen.
In 2014 more than 75 million private events were created on Facebook, but uploading a cover picture meant digging through your camera or phone to find a suitable stock image. But with the new Facebook themes, which were launched earlier this week, users can upload a photo with just a few taps.
Vibrant icons
Jez Burrows was part of the team tasked with designing these new themes. His work came as an illustration pack. "There are 12 themes in my pack," he explains. "They cover everything from seasons to day trips, potluck dinners to cocktail parties, and much more in between."
He adds, "each one is a dense cluster of very simple, geometric icons – they have a really bright, convivial feel to them that should feel at home next to lot of the illustrative touches people may have seen elsewhere on Facebook in recent months."
Each is a dense cluster of very simple, geometric icons, with a really bright, convivial feel to them
With 36 themes in total being introduced to iOS and Android, Jez had his work cut out. "I knew I was going to be drawing a lot of icons (at last count I think there were over 200 individual objects across all the themes!) so it took some time to settle on a style that wasn't too time consuming but still had enough room to add nice details," he says.
"Arranging the objects was also deceptively time-consuming – the seasonal themes have everything arranged in concentric circles, which was originally the plan for the whole set, but due to time constraints that had to change for the other themes."
Check out the first wave of designs below, which are currently available to use on the Facebook Android app.
This theme would be perfect for a picnic
Organise summer activities with this fresh cover art
Get your garden party seen with this circular artwork
Dom Carter is a freelance writer who specialises in art and design. Formerly a staff writer for Creative Bloq, his work has also appeared on Creative Boom and in the pages of ImagineFX, Computer Arts, 3D World, and .net. He has been a D&AD New Blood judge, and has a particular interest in picture books.
