LinkedIn newsletter cover image: size and a template that lasts

The LinkedIn newsletter cover image is the wide picture at the top of each edition. LinkedIn recommends 1920×1080 pixels, a 16:9 frame, and it can be cropped a little when shared in the feed, so keep the headline and logo in the middle. The best covers are not designed one at a time: they come from a single template, with the same background and type every week and only the headline and edition number changing.

LinkedIn newsletter and article image sizes

A newsletter on LinkedIn is a series of articles with a subscribe button, so it uses article sizes plus one extra image: the newsletter's own logo. It also helps to know the link image size, because editions get shared as links outside LinkedIn, where link preview images follow their own rules.

Keeping the title clear of the crop

Feed previews and phones can trim the edges of a 16:9 cover. Treat the outer band of the frame, roughly the outer tenth on each side, as background only. Set the headline in the middle, large enough to read on a phone, where a cover is a few centimetres wide. If it needs more than eight or nine words, it is a subtitle, not a cover line.

What to put on a newsletter cover

A cover has three jobs: say which newsletter this is, say what this edition is about, and look like the last one. Everything else is optional, and most of it gets in the way. Newsletter branding covers the name and voice behind the series.

• The newsletter name, small and always in the same place. It is the series signature.
• The edition's idea, as a short headline rather than the full article title if that title is long.
• An issue number or date, which tells regular readers this is new and quietly signals a habit.
• One background that belongs to the newsletter. It does more for recognition than any logo.
• Optionally, your face as a small circle, if the newsletter is personal and your photo is how people know you.

Article headers versus newsletter covers

If you publish standalone articles as well as a newsletter, give them a related but distinct header so readers can tell a standalone piece from an edition. Keep the same family of colours and the same type, and change one thing: a different light, a different colour from your palette, or no issue number. Here is a pair built from one family.

The same thinking extends to your profile. Your LinkedIn banner and your LinkedIn post design can share this ground, so a reader who clicks from an edition to your profile lands somewhere familiar. LinkedIn personal branding covers how those pieces fit together.

How to build a newsletter cover template

1. 1

   Choose the newsletter's background

   One background, kept for every edition. Dark grounds make a cover feel considered in a white feed; light grounds feel editorial. Pick one.

2. 2

   Fix the positions

   Newsletter name and issue number top left, headline centred, optional detail line below. Write the positions down and never move them.

3. 3

   Set one font in two sizes

   A heading font for the cover line, and the same or a quieter font for the name. Headline fonts helps you choose.

4. 4

   Make the logo separately

   Take the background and one initial or a short word, set very large, on a square. It must read at a tiny size.

5. 5

   Write the cover line last

   After the edition is written, pull its sharpest idea into a short line. The cover line sells the edition; it does not summarise it.

6. 6

   Check it in the feed

   Publish, then look at the edition's post on your phone. If the headline is not readable at that size, cut words, not font size.

Making every edition cover in minutes

Once the template exists, a new cover should take a minute. In Gradiently you can ask the Designer for the week's cover: give it the edition's idea and it writes a short cover line, lays it out in your Mark and brand kit fonts, and makes the 1200×627 link image from the same design. Because a Mark makes room for the words, the headline stays readable on every edition. If you keep your drafts in ChatGPT or Claude, Gradiently works inside those too.