What Is The Perfect Size For YouTube Channel Art, Banner, And Thumbnail?

People will only appreciate your Vlogs once they’ve deemed your YouTube channel looks professional enough. After all, your banner and thumbnail give people a sense of your personality as they are what to see first when people land on your YouTube site. That’s why you need to make sure everything on it (logo, colors, supporting text, etc.) is well-represented. With a beautiful facebook thumnail will help the video attract viewers, in addition, if you make a video for a Digital Marketing campaign, then a thumbnail is a must-have for the success of the campaign.

Having a professional YouTube cover (including an intriguing YouTube thumbnail, channel art, and banner) will ensure the maximum of your presence on YouTube, together with the time you spent and the money invested in your videos. However, finding the proper size for your YouTube cover can be one of the trickiest tasks for most YouTube cover designers.

But hey! You don’t have to worry about that. In this guide, we will help you choose the best size for your YouTube channel art, banner and thumbnail. Let’s get started!

YouTube Channel Art Size

It’s already quite a job to get the size of your YouTube channel art just right for your desktop screen. Now you’ll need to make sure that it must also look great on various types of browsers and high-tech devices.

An important thing to mind when you create your artwork is that YouTube uses different sections of your picture in different formats. So, it’s a good idea to follow the sizing requirements recommended by YouTube itself regarding the perfect size for channel art.

• Minimum file dimensions: 2048 x 1152px
• Maximum file size: under 4MB
• Maximum width: 2560 x 423px
• Safe area: 1546 x 423px at the minimum
• Ideal size: 2560 x 1440px

The maximum width will ensure the always visibility of the “safe area” regardless of any screen size. Meanwhile, the huge ideal size is to prevent the channel art from getting pixilated, cropped, or washed out when shown on multiple devices.

The hard part here is that it’s not like every cover designer has such a large image file at their disposal and always available. Another challenge in the designing of your artwork is that the YouTube channel icon will sit on the upper left by default, eclipsing parts of the picture you upload. So, choose your picture and its location carefully.

YouTube Banner Size

You know, your YouTube page can benefit spectacularly from your right choice of the YouTube banner. However, getting the right size is quite a tricky job if you don’t take these things into account:

• The channel icon, which normally overlaps the top left corner of the banner
• The social sharing buttons (a.k.a. the channel art links), which take up the lower right area of the banner
• Screen sizes – vary from device to device (mobile, TV, desktop, etc.)

A YouTube banner will take on various dimensions based on what platform you use to view it. For instance, a banner might look smaller or larger when viewed on a smartphone, laptop, or other devices. So, you should know about these responsive banner dimensions – suggested by Google, before uploading a picture:

• File size: under 4MB
• Minimum for upload: 2048 x 1152px
• Maximum width: 2560 x 423px
• Recommended: 2560 x 1440px
• Minimum “safe area”: 1546 x 423px

As for the particular feature called “safe area”, this is the middle space in the whole canvas where anything put in it are safe from being cut off on different devices. Therefore, you have to put the most vital information (logo, text, tagline, etc.) in the safe area.

YouTube Thumbnail Size

This small picture plays a big role in “luring” viewers to your video, as it represents the video’s content. That’s why you want your YouTube thumbnail design to look eye-catching. To do so, you’ll need to look over its specific dimensional information.

• Accepted image files: .JPG, .BMP, .GIF, .PNG
• File size: under 2MB. Otherwise, YouTube will not allow it to be uploaded onto the platform.
• Minimum width: 640px – the smallest canvas width accepted either in Photoshop or the design platform. The ideal and recommended width is 1280px.
• Ratio: 16:9 – recommended for thumbnails at 1280 x 720 pixels. This is the ideal format for most modern movies, YouTube players, and TV shows.
• Resolution: 1280 x 720px at the minimum. This has to be compatible with the photo quality – if the resolution is too low, the picture will appear pixilated, especially so if your video showed up on a 72-inch television.

Briefly speaking, the chosen image for your YouTube thumbnail should ideally be 1280 x 720px, its width 640px at the very least. This is the Google-recommended dimension.

YouTube Cover Template

It is most convenient if you’re competent in the graphic design field, as you’ll be able to create an appropriate YouTube cover yourself. The same still applies to when you have a designer friend who you can count on to ask them to create one for/with you.

Otherwise, if you neither have talents nor a designer buddy, don’t fret either because you can still seek help from many online YouTube template makers. In these websites, numerous pre-made templates available will make your task easier.

What’s more, most of the beautiful templates there are customizable so you can use the offered design tools to modify everything about it. And you don’t have to worry about which size you should choose for each aspect of your cover, for these pre-available templates have covered it all for you.

All you need to do is to:

• Pick a ready-made template
• Insert your desired photo if you like
• Adjust any detail as you see fit (e.g., the borders, text, font, placement of designs, graphics, etc.)

If you find it to hard to remember all of the above detail, you can opt for some design tools which have the fixed sizes for you to choose. DesignBold is an example. They have every type of design that you need with the standard size for each of them.