Thoughts on Thumbnails?

OMGItsKittie

OMGItsKittie

I've Got It
Alright so this is something I have been asking myself a whole lot as of lately. Now the idea of thumbnails are super awesome and I love them, they are honestly the first thing i look at before i even glance at the title of a video (weird I know). I'm just curious to know, what are your thoughts on thumbnails? do you like them all different (in a series), or all uniform? How do you create your thumbnails? do you have like a fixed template where you change certain aspects like a background image or character associated with the video?

I'm asking all this because, I'm in a loss on what or how to improve my own thumbnails, cause honestly for every video i have unless in a lets play series I make a new thumbnail, and that my friends is a tedious process!
 
I like to make a different style for each series and keep that style on each one, but still keep them all unique if that makes sense. Then I have games that are one video and all just let my creativity flow and just see what I come up with.
 
I've made myself a template that i always go back to and just change the background image and text but leaving all the other things and same font like you can see in my signature video thumbnail. I think thumbnails are quite important especially if you're a small youtuber. All my thumbnails have like the same style and my logo which i guess makes it uniformed in a way?
 
I actually don't make thumbnails...funny I know. The thumbnail I use is usually the main focus of the video. So I take one of the generic ones YouTube got for ya,and choose the best one,and...tada,thumbnail. And,a lot of times, my videos have a "thumbnail" type picture in it.
 
OMGItsKittie said:
I'm asking all this because, I'm in a loss on what or how to improve my own thumbnails, cause honestly for every video i have unless in a lets play series I make a new thumbnail, and that my friends is a tedious process!
Click to expand...
I know the feeling, I get videos that don't get released let alone uploaded if I don't have a thumbnail ready. But they are what allows you to add your own unique touch to some videos. Imagine looking through search results in YouTube and seeing nothing but text. I'd hate that more than I hate making thumbnails. lol

I actually like consistency in thumbnails, the problem is though; to keep up with the times I've had to adjust to less uniform methods as they're much less appealing if not done right.
Before, for let's plays I'd just use the 1 background with the 1 logo and the episode number, so fairly generic like these: Simple, they look good but the problem is they're too generic, at a glance they all look the same. And really doesn't display any form of creativity which suggest the videos would be equally as uncreative.
upload_2015-7-18_23-52-50.png


This is why I changed my whole style to something more along these lines: Everything but the logo, border and style changes. They require effort but I personally like this approach as I think the thumbnails benefit from it more, since they look tonnes better. And you can see I'm not very creative so I make do with what graphics I can get my hands on that won't get me into trouble... hopefully...
upload_2015-7-18_23-55-13.png

I would highly recommend you change the thumbnail for each video even in a let's play, to make them look different (if you lack creativity to make the uniform thumbnails stand out like crazy), doesn't have to be over the top, something even as simple as these: I was being really lazy with these thumbnails even though I had to make each individual number since I couldn't find the font I wanted. But all I changed was the numbers and the background and I reduced the opacity on the backgrounds, that was it. Took me like <5mins per thumbnail. Longest part was making all the numbers which I did in 1 hit so I could just add the backgrounds xD
upload_2015-7-18_23-58-51.png
 
WolfWraith said:
I know the feeling, I get videos that don't get released let alone uploaded if I don't have a thumbnail ready. But they are what allows you to add your own unique touch to some videos. Imagine looking through search results in YouTube and seeing nothing but text. I'd hate that more than I hate making thumbnails. lol

I actually like consistency in thumbnails, the problem is though; to keep up with the times I've had to adjust to less uniform methods as they're much less appealing if not done right.
Before, for let's plays I'd just use the 1 background with the 1 logo and the episode number, so fairly generic like these: Simple, they look good but the problem is they're too generic, at a glance they all look the same. And really doesn't display any form of creativity which suggest the videos would be equally as uncreative.
View attachment 29987


This is why I changed my whole style to something more along these lines: Everything but the logo, border and style changes. They require effort but I personally like this approach as I think the thumbnails benefit from it more, since they look tonnes better. And you can see I'm not very creative so I make do with what graphics I can get my hands on that won't get me into trouble... hopefully...
View attachment 29988

I would highly recommend you change the thumbnail for each video even in a let's play, to make them look different (if you lack creativity to make the uniform thumbnails stand out like crazy), doesn't have to be over the top, something even as simple as these: I was being really lazy with these thumbnails even though I had to make each individual number since I couldn't find the font I wanted. But all I changed was the numbers and the background and I reduced the opacity on the backgrounds, that was it. Took me like <5mins per thumbnail. Longest part was making all the numbers which I did in 1 hit so I could just add the backgrounds xD
View attachment 29989
Click to expand...

And the best post award goes to this bada** right here!!! That honestly helps me out a lot, it gave me some really good insight to how i can do my thumbnails!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top