are you starting a new YouTube channel
and need some help to design your
channels homepage a great design for
your banner also known as channel art
can give your page a polished and
professional look and entice viewers to
check out your content one challenge is
creating a design that works for all
devices YouTube crops the image
differently depending on the type of
device on a TV it will show the whole
image but on other devices it will crop
out most of the image and just show the
middle area so we want all the important
information to be within this safe area
later in this video we'll show you how
to use this template to make sure your
images will work now it's time to start
creating our design in canva if you're
new to canva you can create a free
account at canva.com on the home page
we'll click YouTube channel art in our
example we want to create an image for a
baking channel to get people excited
about watching our weekly videos about
making donuts we'll look for a template
that will work for us
and doesn't need too many changes you
can use the search bar to type a keyword
this could be a topic such as food or
even a color in our case I think a
yellow template will go well with our
channels cheerful personality you'll see
a variety of template designs we'll look
for one that will be easy to read on all
devices let's try this one it has all
the important elements in the center so
it will look great on a smartphone and
the solid background will eliminate any
issues with cropping out images or
graphics now that we have a design we
like we'll just make a few changes to
customize it let's start by changing the
text will change the title to the name
of our channel then you can let people
know a little bit about your channel for
example when you will upload new videos
now it's time to find an image to fit
our message will select the old image
and click the trash icon to make way for
a new image at this point you could
upload your logo or other image for this
example we'll use one of canvas vector
graphics by clicking elements let's try
type
donuts in the search bar you'll see both
free and paid images paid images are
marked with a price or crown but we'll
look for one that's free if you're still
not seeing one you like you can refine
the search by including a color or other
descriptive words let's change this to
red donut I think red will be a nice
contrast with this yellow background
this smiley face donut may work well
you'll notice that it's an animation but
we can save it as a still image later
let's click it to add it to the design
now we can drag the handles to resize it
and we'll position it in the same place
as the previous image finally we'll just
take a moment to review the design and
see if any other changes are needed we
want to make sure our design will look
good on YouTube so now it's time to
upload the YouTube channel art template
and place it over our design you can
find it quickly by googling youtube
channel art guidelines
there should be a page from google
support
we'll click that and then we'll scroll
down to find the channel art template
and then click the drop down arrow now
we can click channel art templates to
download it this is a zip file so we'll
need to unzip or extract it before we
can use it in canva I'm on a Mac so I'll
click the file and it will unzip to a
new folder
now let's return to canva to upload it
and check it against our design you'll
click upload then select upload an image
or video
navigate to the channel art templates
folder and then open the PNG file now we
can lay this template over our design by
dragging it over the edge of the
template it should snap into place so
that it fits the whole canvas now the
youtube template is making it hard to
see our banner so a great way to fix
that is to change the transparency in
the menu bar will click the transparency
icon and then we can bring it down until
our image shows through now we can see
it much better and it will make it
easier if you need to adjust your design
it looks like the text and the image
will fit nicely so now you can delete
the YouTube template by clicking delete
on the keyboard when you're ready to
publish your design on YouTube you can
click download in the menu bar since we
have an animation we'll switch the file
type so it will be a still image either
a PNG or jpg file will work for this
we'll go with the PNG file then we'll
click download again
finally let's go to your YouTube page
make sure you're signed in to your
Google account and then choose your
channel
now you click customize Channel
here you can add or edit your channel
art then we can drag and drop the file
from the Downloads folder YouTube will
show you a preview of how your design
will look on TV mobile and desktop we
can see that this one is going to fit
all three devices but if it's not
fitting quite right you have the option
to adjust the crop right here in YouTube
since everything looks good we'll click
select to add it to the page now you
have a head start on a great YouTube
channel we encourage you to get started
on your own channel art design that will
show your channels personality and get
people excited about your video content
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