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The Art of thumbnails - How to make vlog thumbnails

@Julia_Coada

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If you ever plan on starting a Youtube channel, thumbnails will play a big part. Depending on their design they will be a deal breaker on wether it will attract new viewers or not. This website will help you get a brief understanding of the key points when making a thumbnail that popular Youtubers always use, how to design based on your niche and an easy tutorial.

I have a Youtube channel, and I specialize more on aestetic/lifestyle vlogs so I want to demonstrate how to make thumbnails in this niche. There are many teens to young adults who go for this category, so I wanted to help by showing the simplest way to make a thumbnail in the vlog style. But it is important that you learn the general elements to add in the thumbnail no matter the types of videos you make

What's a thumbnail?

In resume, a thumbnail is the main image that’s supposed to represent your Youtube video. It needs to get the viewers attention that’s scrolling in Youtubes home page. In addition it needs to have a catchy title, it needs to resume the content of your video and yet make it catchy enough so it doesn’t sound like clickbait. If you add any pictures, they need to be good quality, need to represent elements included into your videos and the alignment needs to keep the style of whatever your Youtube channel is about.

Key elements

There are major elements that naturally catch the brains attention, faces can let you identify the youtuber better inthe thumbnail, big numbers such as money, dangers, emotions, bright colors. However if you add too many of these ¸attention elements it could become too overwhelming or look too fake, so you should keep a balance. For example, in Samand Colby's thumbnail you can clearly see faces, shocked emotions, and a bright red title all meant for you to grab your attention.
Hierarchy is usually used in different forms, the first where you aligh your subject in the center of the thumbnail, then one where you use the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is essentially a grid in which the four middle points of the grid is where you'll want to add your subject. In this case, the youtuber is aligned in the middle right of the grid, focusing the attention on him.
There are major elements that naturally catch the brains attention, faces can let you identify the youtuber better in the thumbnail, big numbers such as money, dangers, emotions, bright colors. However if you add too many of these attention elements it could become too overwhelming or look too fake, so you should keep a balance. For example, in Sam and Colby's thumbnail you can clearly see faces, shocked emotions, and a bright red title all meant for you to grab your attention.
Contrast is the play of colors. Its when you use two contrasting colors for different elements and one of them if the contrastimg color pops out more than the other. Contrast is usually used to highlight the main subject of the video. In this example there's a simple contrast of a minecraft youtuber surrounded by a bunch of cookies, theres a contrast between the green spot and the orange filling most of the video.

Know your niche

A niche is what you choose your Youtube channel to be about. (ex: sports, technology, arts, reactions, vlogs, video games, etc...) Having a niche is very important because it will attract the viewers who are interested in this type of content. At the beginning of your Youtube career its ok to be indecisive but the more you get attention the harder will it be to regain attention if you switch niches. A part of the problem is also the algorithm, if you aren’t precise in your title, description or thumbnail your video won’t go far.

  • How Do I Make A Thumbnail?
  • How Do I Make A Thumbnail?
    • How Do I Make A Thumbnail?

I will show how to make a thumbnail for aesthetic vlogs, and my process since it is my niche. The apps I use to make my thumbnails are Picsart (to allign my pictures and text) and procreate (to add sketches and extra decorations). Picsart is free, while procreate costs about 13$, you can use free art apps like adobe fresco.

We are going to recreate a thumbnail from my trip to Osaka & Kyoto, Japan. First I choose the main attractions that ive shown and put them in a collage in Picsart. The type of aesthetic vlog thumbnails are either composed of a collage of 3 to 4 images or one big good quality image.

Then, I add two more elements in order two “glue” the collage a bit more toghether. I crop them in procreate. You can add floating elements that add to the aesthetic of the thumbnail that are eye catching, I’m adding a Rillakumma plushie, a famous Japanese character, and dango mochi, a popular colourful Japanese dessert and I finally add the text.

Here's some helpful videos

how to make a killer thumbnail (for the 2025 algorithm)
How to ACTUALLY Create YouTube Thumbnails Like a Pro!
Check out my Youtube channel