Have you ever wondered how your favorite creators make their YouTube thumbnails or
even the thumbnails for their Instagram reels? It looks like they spend days with these designs.
How do they come up with the ideas and how do they actually create 'em? Well, in this video,
I'm gonna dissect the thumbnails of five of our favorite creators to show
you the techniques that they use to create some really cool thumbnails that you can put to use.
It's really quick, and it's really easy. We're gonna be using CANVA pro for this demonstration.
Well, in this video, I'm gonna dissect the thumbnails from five of our favorite creators,
Gillian Perkins, Jade Beason, Vanessa Lao, Katie Steckly, and Cathrin Manning. We're gonna be
looking at five basic techniques in CANVA that are really easy, but really effective for thumbnails.
We're gonna look at how you can remove the background, how you can blur out the background,
how you can trace your portrait with a border of any color and simple text effects like:
text blocks, curves, and shadows, and make sure you stick around until the end of the video where
I'm gonna share two things that you absolutely do not want to include in your thumbnails.
This is gonna be really fun. Thumbnails are so important.
This is the first impression that people see, especially on YouTube
before they even read the title of the video. Many YouTube strategists recommend spending
as much time on your thumbnail as you do on the actual video. You're gonna love me for this one.
We got a lot to learn, so we better get started. "You're not going
back to the US, I'm keeping this Gringo!" So the first thing we do is go to our homepage of CANVA.
Now I'm using Canva Pro, which is $10 a month. If you pay yearly or only $13 a month,
and the price is so worth. Some of the effects I'll be using in this tutorial are not available
using the free version of Canva, but don't worry. You can follow along even in the free version.
So let's click on new design and we can either type in or select from
the list. YouTube thumbnail. Let's do a mock design from each of these awesome creators.
Let's start with these high performing videos from Katie Steckly and Cathrin Manning.
If you haven't checked out, either channel, make sure to do so.
Katie has some really helpful videos about podcasting, YouTube, Instagram,
and more. And Cathrin has some really fun vlogs and also some really helpful videos
about YouTube as well. So let's look at these two thumbnails. They both have a
lot of similarities. First. They both have had the backgrounds blurred out a little bit more
to help the text pop out and they are both using a curved text effect.
Let's see if we can easily replicate them using cam. Let's start with Katie Steckly's "F
Instagram" thumbnail. Let's add a blank page and choose a photo of Veronica to
use for this illustration. There are two different ways right now in Canva that you
can blur out the background of your images. Let's use the first one for this thumbnail.
If we select Veronica's photo and then click on edit image, this brings up all of Canvas' effects.
Let's scroll down until we find auto focus and click on it. It
automatically detects the background and blurs it. We can adjust the intensity of
the blur from this top control bar thing. And when we're happy, we click on apply.
Now let's grab some text and type in F Instagram, we'll change the color to white. And now with the
text selected, let's choose effects from the top menu. This brings up all of canvas's text effects.
And would you look at that? There's a curve option. You can adjust the amount of curve,
let's get it to our liking and move it around where we see.
Now let's find a font that we like. That's a little more like Katie's
we can search through hundreds of fonts and refine our searches too.
Let's type ins to refine the search to fonts with "SERIF" and choose one. We like now let's add
another text layer we'll type in, start a YouTube channel and pick a font and position that we like.
And finally, if we go to elements from our toolbar on the. We can type in Instagram
and find an Instagram logo. This one allows us to change the color to anything that we like.
We'll use white, like Katie did and position it in a similar area.
And now I can repeat this process and type YouTube into the element search bar.
I'll make it white and position it right around where Katie did and bought a beam. We're done
you rock Katie. Thanks for the idea. One down four to go. Let's move on to Cathrin Manning's
thumbnail. First, let's pick a picture of Veronica again, to use this time. I'm going to wait to
expand the picture until we add all of the different layers that we're gonna add next.
Let's copy and paste the picture by pressing control or command C and then control or
command V. Now you can see that we have two of the same pictures and they're the same sides.
Now we can select the top picture and click on edit image. Back to the effects menu again,
and from here, we can select my favorite effect in Canva remove background.
Now that the background is removed, we can blur the background of the bottom picture
with the bottom picture selected. We can click on edit image again, and from the effects menu.
We'll see these controls to adjust. Let's click on, see all, look at these controls
from these options. You'll see blur. Now we can blur out the bottom picture to our liking.
And when we slide the top picture back into position,
we have this awesome effect. This is also how we can hide things or parts of the text
behind our subject. Like Katherine did. We can just add a text layer
and position the layer in between the two pictures, like a sandwich. But with Cathrin
thumb, now we're going to have to get really creative to achieve what she did with the text.
And that is likely because she was using Photoshop to add a glow and a shadow and a curve
to her text. The text affects in Canva only allow us to use one of these effects at a
time. So to get around this, here's one of my hacks that I know you're gonna love me.
Let's create another blank page and we'll add some text and type in what to do next.
We'll make the text all caps. And now with the text selected, we'll choose effects
from the effects menu. Let's choose curve and we'll position the text,
just how we want it. Okay. And now let's choose,
share in the top, right? And from this menu, select down. Now here, we will make sure to
select transparent background and we'll make sure to only select this page to download.
Now, we have turned the text layer into an image file.
So now let's upload this image file. Now that we have an image file of this text,
we can position it about right where we want it and start adding more effects.
Another quick hack I use in Canva to easily change the color of photos is to select, edit.
And choose the dual tone effect. You can click on the edit looking icon on any effect in Canva
to further customize. Inside of dual tone, instead of using two colors,
we can just select two of the same color and it will change the color of the image layer.
Now let's copy and paste this layer twice so that we have three different layers.
The first thing that Cathrin's text has is a border or what is also called a stroke.
We can get this by clicking, edit image and select glow from the effects options.
We'll turn the transparency all the way up the blur all the way down,
and we can adjust the size of this outline. First layer complete.
Now for the second layer, Cathrin has also added a shadow. So if we wanted to,
we could just change the color of this layer using dual tone again, and offset the two
layers from each other. Or we can also select drop. Now from this menu, we can fine tune how
we want our shadow to appear and change the color of our shadow to any color we want.
Now let's drag this layer on top of the first one, and we'll need to move its position
backwards. A quick key for this is control or command bracket. Layer two complete.
And the last subtle effect that Cathrin has on her text is a glow.
This seems to help the font pop out even more. Again, we select edit image.
And once again, we'll select glow here. Let's exaggerate this a bit more than Kathrin did.
We'll use this nice brown color. We can now move this layer on top of the other two.
And again, we can adjust the position quickly with the command or control bracket
quick. Now that we have all three layers, the way we like them.
Let's highlight all three of them together by clicking and dragging to create a marque with
our mouse. And when all three are highlighted, we select these three dots up here on the right
for more options and choose group. Now they all move around like one layer.
Now we can position the text right where we want it.
And finally, we can grab the top picture of Veronica with the background removed
and drag it back into place. We may need to bring the position of it forward. And now that the whole
picture looks great. We can select everything on the canvas and we'll click the three dots again
and find the group button, click it and group the whole picture together with everything grouped.
We can now fill the entirety of this canvas or this page. One final amazing
effect. I wanna show you before we're totally finished with this thumbnail
is canvas's brand new skin softening effect. This effect is so useful. Again,
with the top image selected, let's choose edit image and now select face retouch.
We can fine tune the adjustments of this effect and even toggle the effect
on and off by clicking show original. You can now go back to the adjustment
tab and make any adjustment to your images you want. Brightness contrast,
vibrance, clarity, and even play with the color temperature and just like that.
The second thumb is done. Pretty cool. Let's jump into the third thumbnail and take a look at this
high performing thumbnail from Gillian Perkins. Gillian has a really helpful channel packed full
of amazing tips for online business owners. Great videos for beginners, as well as helpful
videos for pros, all about workflow, business management, and marketing, and a lot more.
Now you'll notice that the background isn't so much
blurred as it is almost covered with a semi transparent white color to help the text pop
out. The other thing Jillian loves to use in her thumbnails are these text blocks with either a
black or a white background with opposing black or white text, many YouTubers use this effect.
And it's because it really helps the text pop out and it makes it really easy to. So again,
I'll select create design, choose YouTube thumbnail and drag Gillian's picture onto the left
corner to auto fill the page. Now we have this as a reference, let's create a new blank page.
And first we'll select a picture of Veronica that is somewhat similar.
This one is great, but with the image selected, let's click on flip and flip this image
horizontally. Now, just like we did with the last thumbnail let's copy and paste the image,
and then we'll select the top layer. Click on edit image and. Background remover.
Gosh, I love this effect this time. Instead of blurring out the background, let's go to
elements from the side, toolbar and select a square shape from the lines and shapes category.
Now let's entirely cover the bottom picture with this shape by resizing it
next, let's change the color to a white color. Now click on the three dots again
for more options and click on this transparency icon you see right.
Let's adjust the transparency until the background is visible, but subdued in white.
And now we can drag the top layer back into place. And wow. So fun. Now we
can start adding text layers. The top two are easy. They're just simple black text,
but the bottom two are blocks. Now there are two different ways you can create
this block effect in kava for this thumbnail. I'm gonna show you the super easy way.
All we have to do is select effects and from the text effects will choose
background here. We can adjust the background block that kava makes for us. We can make the
corners rounded or square and we could change the color to anything we'd like. This effect
is a serious time saver as you'll see in the next thumbnail where we'll add blocks the harder way.
And as quick as a snap, we have an amazing Jillian Perkins ish
thumbnail. I think Jillian would be proud. Okay. On number four,
this really fun and high performing thumbnail from Jade Beason. Jade's channel will help you to
profit from your online business and improve your marketing abilities. A definite favorite of ours.
Take a look at this thumbnail. She has removed the background. Traced herself in a
white outline or stroke. She added a simple background with a light pattern and she is
also using text blocks to make the text stand out.
Let's take a crack at this one. Shall we? Again, we selected new design and then YouTube thumbnail
drag her thumbnail onto the top left corner to autofill the page for a nice reference.
First let's create a new blank page and with the background selected. Let's pick a new color.
How cool is this? CAMBA will auto detect colors from photos in your designs for you to use
so we can precisely mimic Jade's colors. Let's select this one and
now to find a pattern like hers, we can select elements and type in pattern.
We can also try more specific search terms like pattern grid. I found this one while preparing
for this video. So it shows up in recently used. I can now choose a color for the pattern and.
The background looks pretty good. And now let's go to uploads from the left
hand toolbar and pick a picture of Veronica to use for this experiment.
The side of this picture is cut off a little bit, but I like how she's holding her hand up
so we can put a phone in her hand in a second, but first let's remove the
background from Veronica's picture. Now let's add a white stroker outline around her picture
again by clicking edit image and selecting glow from the effects.
Let's change the color to white, turning the transparency all the way up and the blur all the
way down and adjust the size. Now we can add the text blocks. Remember from our previous thumbnail,
we used the text effect called background to automatically create a block behind our text,
but you may find that you cannot get the perfect size of box this way.
So here's the more time consuming, but more refined way of doing it. And that's to add square
elements from the elements. And resize them and place them behind the text layers in our design.
This definitely takes a little more time to get the placement, right. And in her thumbnail,
Jade had the blocks of color extend behind her image, which is a pretty cool effect.
We can easily do that while we are designing these by extending them over the top of Veronica's
picture. Once we have our blocks colored and positioned the way we want them. We can again, use
the position quick key control or command bracket to bring Veronica's layer to the very front.
Now for the final touch, we need to put a phone in Veronica's hand.
Canva makes this super easy. You just have to take a screenshot of anything on your phone and
upload it to Canva. I'll use this screenshot of our YouTube channel for this illustration.
Now with the image of my phone screen selected I'll click edit. This time from the effects I'll
select phone from the frames category and Canva automatically puts my image inside of an iPhone.
Pretty freaking cool. Now all we have to do is find the right position for the phone and maybe
move things around a little bit to make it look just right. Oh yeah. And let's not forget to add
an element we'll search for Instagram and use this IG logo. And let's change the color to this
brown color and just like that, we have a number sweet thumbnail that is likely to get clicked on.
Thanks Jade for the inspiration. And now my friend, we have arrived at our last thumbnail.
This is one from an absolute favorite creator of ours. Vanessa Lao, Vanessa has
done incredible work on her channel and really made a name for herself quickly on YouTube with
some exceptional Instagram videos she has since continued to add amazing videos to her channel.
To help you level up your marketing and business endeavors.
This thumbnail is from a very high performing video of hers and looks
super fun to recreate. She removed the background, made a white stroke around her image used what
looks like a cutout of paper in the background. And she circles an important stat on her phone.
Let's see if we can tackle this one. So again, we choose new design and YouTube thumbnail.
We'll drag Vanessa's picture into the top left corner to auto fill the page.
Let's create a new page and now for fun, let's use a picture of me.
I don't have one of me pointing, but I do have this one of me looking to the left.
So first, why don't we remove the background now let's click on the photos tab from the left hand
toolbar and we can search through Cam's stock photos. We can try typing things like paper,
pink paper, or orange pink paper, until we find something that we like. Again,
if you want any photo to auto fill the canvas, you can drag it to the top left corner of your page.
I think this paper looks pretty good. Now let's give the picture of me a stroke or outline back
to the edit's image button and to the effects menu let's select glow. Turn the transparency
all the way up and the blur all the way down. Change the color to white and adjust the size
to our liking. Okay. Now for the phone, let's use that same screenshot for this illustration too.
We just click on the photo from the uploads tab to drop it into the.
Then we click on edits image and select phone. Now let's search the elements tab again and type in
circle. We can choose this circle right here. It allows us to change the color. So we'll find
a green color similar to Vanessa's. Once I have the circle where I want it, I'll highlight the
phone and the circle and I'll click on those three dots to reveal more options and select.
Now I can resize the phone the way I like it. Now let's add the Instagram logo by typing Instagram
into the search bar, inside the elements tab. We'll bring it into the design
and resize all three objects until they look just right together.
Would you look at that? I gotta show this to Vanessa. I know she'll love it.
So what'd you think pretty amazing, right? And you can do most of these things in the free version of
Canva, but come on, you gotta upgrade to Canva Pro it's our most used tool in content creation.
It's just amazing. You can try Canva Pro for free by going to podsoundschool.com/canva.
I'll also leave that link in the description where you're watching this video.
And Hey, when you make your own thumbnails, whether for YouTube or for Instagram reels,
share them with us and be sure to tag us and we will reshare them and help to get some more views
on your videos, happy content creation, and we will catch you on our next video.