This text is an authorized one and was originally written by , founder and president of , a company specialized in audience growth on social networks.
The (or covers) are the most important aspect of publishing any video, besides the content itself. This is due to the fact that thumbnails, along with titles, are the deciding factor in whether or not a person clicks on a video.
Because of its enormous importance, we at created a thumbnail creation guide, with detailed explanations of the principles and tactics we use in developing our own thumbnails.
We’ve gained these insights through conversations with content creators, reading the YouTube creator’s handbook, and countless experiments with various layout types, all while measuring click-through rates (CTR) or performance of our thumbnails. with ads.
The main objective
The main objective of our thumbnails is that our audience, current or desired, see our content and continue watching the videos.
During our work we found 3 guiding principles that allow us to achieve this goal.
The 3 principles
The three principles that Federator uses to create a clickable YouTube cover are:
- The photos faithfully represent the content of the video.
- The thumbs encourage our audience to view the video.
- Thumbs draw the attention of our audience.
We discovered those principles with the methods mentioned above and continue to apply them because they work.
Since our goal is to engage and grow our audience, visitors need to not only click on our videos, but also view our content. Therefore, our thumbnails must be attractive and captivating.
And in order for visitors to continue to see our content, the thumbnails need to faithfully represent what is in the video and stand out from others on YouTube.
The following tactics, listed in order of importance and value, incorporate our 3 principles at various levels.
1. Make close on the faces, preferably making eye contact
Human beings, which makes thumbnails with that feature more captivating, especially if the whites of the eyes are visible.
In addition, much of human communication is done from the reading of facial expressions.
Examples of close and eye contact (PewDiePie, Smosh, Michele Phan, CartoonHangover):
2. Shows intense emotions
Going a little further, we can say that displays of intense emotion also help. They are easily identifiable and allow the visitor to feel the same strength through empathy.
When a visitor emotionally connects with something or wants to feel that same emotion that they see, they are very likely to click on your video.
Examples of intense emotions (PewDiePie, Smosh, AllThatGlitters21, Cartoon Hangover):
3. Use backgrounds with strong colors
Backgrounds with bright colors stand out in relation to the white background of YouTube and other thumbs without a flashy background.
We have had great success using the vignette effect (darkened edges) and radial stripes (“circus canvas” style) that seek to draw the eye to a center, just behind the featured face. This draws the visitor back to the main element of the thumbnail, making the thumbnail stand out even more.
Examples of backgrounds with strong colors (Ray William Johnson, Fine Brothers, Shane Dawson, Tobuscus):
4. Use contrast and contours
Contrast and contours allow the main figure in the video to stand out against the background, providing depth of field and making the figure stand out even more.
Examples of contrast and contours (Epic Rap Battles, FreddieW, Shane Dawson, Tobuscus):
5. Use of text
We generally try to avoid the use of text on the YouTube cover. The titles already owe on their own.
However, in some cases, such as videos about games, the use of text is essential.
Our experiments have found that it’s best to limit yourself to three or four words maximum, ensuring that the text stands out against the background, either through strong outline or through contrasting colours.
Text examples on thumbnails (Smosh, Epic Meal Time):
6. Visual identity and brand
The application of a small logo or watermark is essential to achieve great thumbnails. This helps the image stand out on YouTube, as they are visual marks that make it clear to your audience that this is one of your videos.
If people can easily identify a video as yours, they’re more likely to click on it.
Examples of logos and visual identity (Vice, MondoMedia, Cartoon Hangover):
7. Consistency
Consistency, as well as the use of a visual identity or logo, allows visitors to easily identify your videos.
Consistency in YouTube cover design includes color palette, layout, number and arrangement of elements, font, and more.
Consistency examples (Shane Dawson, Epic Meal Time, Cartoon Hangover):
8. Create with small screens in mind
Most of the time, your thumbnail will appear very small on YouTube – whether on mobile, in the related videos column, or in the homepage feed. Therefore, your design should focus on these reductions.
For example, this image of Rocket Dog from Cartoon Hangover works great as a thumbnail, according to the criteria above: there’s a close up on the face, it features intense frightening emotion, and it’s set against a vivid blue background.
However, when we reduce it to the size of most impressions (YouTube thumb views), it doesn’t look very good:
On the other hand, if we zoom in on the face, it already improves a lot:
9. Choosing the colors.
When choosing colors for a YouTube cover, we generally try to use complementary colors, that is, colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel.
We use this resource to make them stand out from each other.
So, if our thumb shape is blue, like in the Catbug example below, we choose a yellow and orange background. As they are complementary colors, they stand out, attracting the gaze and attention of the public.
We also use analogous color patterns (colors close to each other on the color wheel), as they are pleasing to the eye.
See an example at the bottom of the thumbnail below:
Also, we try to use the color yellow whenever possible.
The performance of thumbnails that contain yellow is proven better than those that do not have that color.
This is mainly due to the fact that we only notice the color yellow when Cone M (green) and Cone L (red) are stimulated at the same time (or, especially, when green and red light mix) making more receptors in our eyes are activated, bringing out the yellow even more.
Also, we are more sensitive to yellow light because it occurs at high points of the red and green wavelengths:
Fun fact: this is one of the reasons why school buses in the United States, taxis, and warning signs in various regions of the world are yellow.
10. They must be easy to see and understand
Your thumbnails must be visible and understandable to a casual user. This means that they should visually tell the story of the topic of your video.
For example, the two YouTube covers below are videos on how to make rainbow cake:
The second thumbnail clearly tells the story of the video, unlike the first, which is dark and doesn’t show the finished product.
The second thumbnail has a clearer and brighter image, showing the final product and visually telling the audience what the subject of the video is (a woman making a rainbow cake).
Meanwhile, the first thumbnail shows only something that happens in the video (a hand pouring a green thing onto a blue thing, inside a bowl).
Also, the second thumbnail is visually striking (includes a photo of a smiling woman and a seemingly delicious cake), while the first doesn’t produce the same effect (someone pouring a not-so-pretty-looking liquid into a container).
11. Must represent the first 15 to 30 seconds of the video
The important thing is not only that the thumbnail represents the video itself. In strategic terms, it should also represent the first 15 to 30 seconds.
This is due to the behavior of views on YouTube. If a visitor feels misled by a thumbnail, title, or a combination of the two, they will abandon the video almost immediately.
If a video is structured so that the thumbnail/title relationship is only displayed in the middle or end of the video, we suggest you rearrange that video before uploading or mention in it that the thumbnail theme and title will be covered later.
12. Avoid placing important items in the bottom right corner
YouTube usually covers the bottom right corner with the timestamp or “watch later” button.
The bottom right corner is also the last place a Western visitor will look, because of the way that audience reads (left to right, top to bottom). Therefore, avoid placing items in that corner.
Covered right corner examples:
13. Analyze your competition
At Frederator we constantly see thumbs from other channels that produce similar content and have similar audiences.
We do it to look at the types of thumbnails that our competitors have already used to condition the public to click.
For example, a channel that is currently showing this type of thumbs – in a piece called “” – with videos about toys. His thumbnails, by most metrics, are really, really good:
However, after analyzing thumbs from channels with a similar audience, we realized that the audience we wanted to see Toy Pizza was conditioned to click on a very different type of cover:
The images those visitors were clicking on showed the entire toy, had backgrounds without flashy colors, and usually contained text. These channels also featured only one toy per thumb.
After this discovery, Toy Pizza made some adjustments and started creating thumbnails that were attractive and familiar to the target audience, which increased the performance of their videos.
Before and after:
Test, experiment, analyze and repeat
At Frederator, we spend a lot of time with our thumbnails, because we really want to know how each one performs.
Previously, I didn’t have thumbnail metrics, so we developed a way to discover performance through Google’s TrueView ads, where it was now possible to see the relative click-through rate (CTR) of all the videos served there.
For example, in a 20-month period, we used eight different templates for the covers of (another channel we showcase on YouTube).
We have kept some for long periods…
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