- Your thumbnail is arguably the most important part
of your video on YouTube
and that kinda sucks but, unfortunately,
no matter how great your video is
if people aren't clicking on it,
it doesn't really matter.
And with more than 800 hours of content
being uploaded every minute of every day,
spending a little extra time
to make your thumbnails grab people's attention
is probably a good investment.
It's easy to spend a ton of time on a video
and then just quickly piece together a thumbnail
while you wait for your video to upload,
but realistically on this platform,
love it or hate it, your thumbnail
is the number one thing that's gonna get
people to click on your video
aside from the algorithm
not deciding to destroy you.
It can sometimes be tempting to look
at some of the bigger channels
for ideas for your thumbnails
and I think that you can definitely find
a lot of inspiration there.
But sometimes you can get sort of a false impression.
Someone like Casey Neistat, for example,
can upload a video that just has
an out-of-context screenshot as the thumbnail
and it's gonna get million of views
because at this point he's built
a big enough audience where people know
that no matter what the video is titled
or what the thumbnail is,
it's going to be interesting to watch.
And his channel is big enough
where YouTube itself will take over
a lot of the promotion and recommending
and getting the video out once he uploads it.
But if you're like me and you're not
quite at diamond play button status,
then it is worth spending a little extra time
on your thumbnail to make them stand out.
I've even heard some people say
that you should spend as much time
on your thumbnail as the actual video itself.
And I kind of think that might be
like a little bit excessive
but it's a good insight into how much effort
you should be spending on your thumbnail.
I'm definitely not an expert
but I feel like I've developed
a pretty decent thumbnail style
over the past two years and so I thought
that by sharing some of my ideas
it might help you to come up
with a thumbnail style all your own.
I think a good place to start,
if you already have a channel
and you have a decent selection of videos
on that channel, is to go through your videos
and sort them by most popular,
and then look at like your five most viewed videos
and see if you notice any similarities
between those thumbnails.
And what works is probably gonna be
a little different for every channel
but like, for example, on my channel
I notice that my most popular videos
have thumbnails where there's a really dominant subject
at the center of focus in the image.
For you, you might notice that thumbnails
that show your face do better,
or thumbnails that don't show your face do better,
or using a specific font,
or ones that have not enough text
or do have some text.
You'll probably start to notice something
that makes people want to click on that video.
So for me, once I realized that having
a dominant subject in my thumbnail
was really important, the next thing
that actually leveled up my thumbnail game
was to make sure that I set aside time
to take an actual thumbnail photo
instead of just relying on a screenshot.
Screenshots can be okay sometimes
but if you take the time to use
like a decent camera and a lens,
if you're filming your videos with a DSLR,
you just flip that into photo mode
and now you're using the photo capabilities
of that camera, and because it's an actual photo
it's usually much higher resolution
than the video files themselves
so that gives you a lot more flexibility
later on when you go to edit your thumbnail.
This has become so important for me
that I actually have to make notes to myself.
When I write out like a notes document
that has my ideas for a video,
in there I have to remind myself
like take a thumbnail photo.
Or in the notebook I put it as a checkbox,
like take a thumbnail photo.
'Cause it's super easy to forget.
Take this video, for example.
I wanted to have a thumbnail
that showed me working on thumbnails
but that's like kind of a hard thing to communicate.
So rather than using like a screenshot
or just taking a generic photo of myself,
I actually took the time to set up a scene,
to set up my camera, turn on my lights,
and then make a bunch of dumb faces
at the camera that try to communicate
what the video is gonna be about.
Once I'm done taking my thumbnail photos
I put them into Lightroom
and I delete the ones I don't like
and then I choose from the rest.
I usually make a few basic color
and lighting adjustments
just to help the photo be as good
as it can possibly be.
With the thumbnail for this video
it kinda came down to what
goofy facial expression I like the most.
Was it this one, or this one?
Or whatever is happening here?
And in the end I chose this picture
just because it made me laugh the most
and I figured that if it actually evoked
a genuine emotion for me,
that probably a good thing to put
as the thumbnail 'cause maybe it's gonna do that
for somebody else too.
Once I know which photo I'm gonna use,
I'm still choosing between a couple,
I put those into Photoshop on a 1280 by 720 canvas,
which sounds a little weird
because it's lower resolution.
YouTube says that you can upload
1920 by 1080 thumbnails,
but personally, whenever I try to do that,
I get a lot of error messages that say like
your thumbnail's too big, file size too large,
and I haven't had any issues with 1280 by 720.
So you can try 1920 by 1080
and if it works for you, that is awesome.
As you start paying more attention
to your thumbnails you'll begin to develop
a more personal and clear style.
So for example, one thing I do is I use
all hand drawn titles and I'm proud to say
that I haven't had a typed letter
on a thumbnail or a video in almost two years.
And nobody is going to care or notice
but it is one little thing that kind of adds
to a clear brand identity for my channel.
So hopefully when you see a thumbnail
with a dominant subject
and some big bold blue handwritten letters
you're gonna immediately know
that that's one of my videos.
And to do this, I actually just use
Procreate on the iPad and the Apple pencil.
I do like to know exactly which photo I'm gonna use
before I start drawing out my lettering
because depending on the photo's composition
that could determine how I want my lettering to go.
Do I want it to be a bold title across the top?
Do I want it to be some stacked words over to the side?
Is there room for like a small sub-headline?
All those things are determined
by the photo itself.
And so once I know that it's gonna tell me
exactly how much writing I can use
on my thumbnail without totally overdoing it.
For a lot of years I taught
a high school year book class
and one thing we did in year book
was we worked with headlines and sub-headlines.
So you have a page and then you have a headline
that grabbed the reader's attention,
followed by a sub-headline
that added a little bit more information.
And so that's basically what I try to do
with my thumbnails.
I'll usually have just a few words
in big bold blue letters
that really stand out and grab somebody's attention,
and then I'll have some smaller letters
written in just a thin white writing
to kinda add a little more info
about what that video is gonna be about.
So for example, with this video
that you're watching right now
I know that I want the word thumbnail
to be really big so you're gonna see the image,
you're gonna see the word thumbnail
and it's gonna immediately kind of tell you
what the video is gonna be about.
So I'll start out by drawing thumbnail.
And looking at the photo itself
I'm right in the middle
and I don't really know
where I can put the word thumbnail.
I might be able to put it at the top really big.
But I think what might look the most balanced
is to break the word in two
and kind of have like thumb on one side of me
and nail on the other.
Maybe like kinda going behind me a little bit.
And in that way it's gonna sort of fill
the whole frame right behind me.
So since these are gonna be blue
I just select blue
and I just start drawing out my letters.
You could also put the photo directly into Procreate
and draw right on top of it.
I don't do that because I like to add
a black stroke outline and even a little bit
of a drop shadow to help pop the title out
and Procreate just doesn't have those options yet.
And the good thing about using hand drawn titles
is you don't have to worry about them
being perfect, part of what makes them good
is that they are imperfect.
That's what makes them unique.
So even though lots of people can do
hand drawn titles,
everybody's looks a little bit different.
I think that's super cool.
(upbeat music)
I've talked about this in a few other videos,
about lettering, but for the bigger words
I outline the letters first.
So rather than write them
I draw the shape of the letters,
and then I just fill those in once I'm done.
(upbeat music)
There's kind of a lot of pressure here
because since this is a video about thumbnails
it has to have like a good thumbnail.
Once I'm finished I just airdrop
the Procreate layers as PNG files
straight to my MacBook where I can then
add them in to Photoshop.
And you really don't want to add
too much text to your thumbnails,
just enough to grab the reader's attention.
I've also recently started adding in
this black bar that kind of helps
the writing pop out a little bit more.
I really like it
as it also ties into something
at the end of my videos.
I've been putting black bars kind of
as I'm closing out my videos
and I have my like hey, don't forget to subscribe
and check out these other videos.
So that way the thumbnail and the video
are all like tied together
as one cohesive unit.
Here I've already got the photo,
I've already got this black bar.
What I'm probably gonna do
is split the word in half, like I said,
so that way we've got thumb
over on one side,
which looks kinda goofy,
and then I can just duplicate that layer
and then add a mask that just blocks out
the word thumb.
That way I now have two layers,
one says thumb and one says nails.
I can position those exactly where I want them
on either side of me in the picture.
What I always do with my letters
is I do add a little bit of a drop shadow
as much as like, that's kind of a big no no
in the world of graphic design.
But whatever, and add a stroke outline.
'Cause again remembering that these things
are gonna be for most people super duper tiny,
you really want them to pop out,
you really want people to know
what this video is about.
So for this people are gonna see this picture.
They are gonna see this goofy-looking face
and they are gonna know
it's something to do with thumbnails
and it might look just corky enough
and just interesting enough
that they'll want to click on it.
Once I have the words exactly how I want them
in terms of size and position,
that's when I rasterize them,
and then I just erase parts of them
that should look like they're behind
a subject in the photo.
I know there are other ways to do this
but whatever, this is what works for me.
So, for example, right here I would like
the N on thumbnails to just pop out
from behind me a little bit.
I actually want the bottom of the M right here
and the bottom of the B
to go behind the iPad and my hand,
just to give it some depth,
so that way I'm popping out,
the words are behind me.
It's really cool when you can have your text
and your image kind of interact like that.
(upbeat music)
And now when we zoom out, perfect.
It's really subtle but it looks like the words
are just a little bit behind me.
Now that I've got that,
I want to add in the white sub-headline,
which in this case is just gonna say How I Make My,
so it's How I Make My Thumbnails.
And this is actually gonna be more simple.
What I've started doing with my sub-headlines
is I've specifically tried
not to make them perfect.
And then I just airdrop that,
and I just drag that in to Photoshop.
Play around with the same thing.
I add a drop shadow, I add a stroke outline.
And then I just resize it and reposition it.
In this case something like that
looks pretty darn good.
If it shows up like that size in your feed
it's still an interesting photo.
And if it's projected on a TV,
oh god, if it's projected on a TV really big,
then it's still an interesting photo.
It's also important to remember
that if a video isn't doing as well
as you'd hoped, you can always change
the thumbnail and assuming
that the video itself is actually good,
sometimes that can be all that it takes
to kinda give it a jumpstart.
I had a video on this channel,
which was up for about six months
and barely hit 100 views,
and then I decided to just change the thumbnail.
I didn't touch anything else,
I just put a better, more interesting thumbnail,
and within two weeks it went up
to like 20,000 views,
and nothing else changed except the thumbnail.
It's not always a magic cure
that's gonna guarantee
if you have the right thumbnail,
your video is gonna do really well.
But it is something that can definitely
make a huge difference.
And I do just want to reemphasize
that it's not all about views,
it's not the only reason to make videos.
There is something intrinsically rewarding
about just creating something,
even if it's just for you
or your family and friends
and nobody else ever sees it.
The frustrating part, and where the thumbnails come in,
is if you do want other people to see
the thing that you've made
and you've put so much time, energy and effort into it
and people just aren't watching it,
it can be pretty discouraging.
So that's where having a really good thumbnail
can sometimes make a huge difference.
And if you're interested in trying
to make your thumbnails more personal
with hand lettering,
I did put together a playlist
of some lettering videos I've made.
Some of them are about how to use Procreate
and others are just about hand lettering in general.
That's a really cool way
to kinda level up your thumbnail game.
(upbeat music)