Hey welcome back to a new video Shawn's, the name YouTube's the game. I want to talk about something I get asked all the time when it comes to YouTube and really I get this question asked in the comments section of this in my youtube master class in real life presentations that I give on YouTube, and I get this question All the time and it's how to create great thumbnails, simple and easy, and I get it you know time is valuable and the problem is a lot of people always tell me. Well, you know, I don't have time or I'm not very good, I'm not a graphic designer. How do I go ahead and actually make good thumbnails? I don't have Photoshop, etc, etc.

I mean I get so many different excuses in my response. As always, we are living in a very technologically advanced world. There are tons of programs and services out there that you can utilize we're going to be going over one of them today, so stay tuned and again you know I feel, like I say this at the beginning of all my videos, but I've put on YouTube forever. Okay, I've been on YouTube since, like 2011, I've created something like 2000 thumbnails, and the best tip I can give you ever on YouTube is to keep it simple, simple, thumbnails, always perform rise to say 99.9 percent of the time they perform better than a complex.

Looking thumbnail so sure I use Photoshop for most of my thumbnails, but that's because I am super familiar in the program and have been using it for like years I'll, be showing you a free program, slash service that you can use to create some amazing thumbnails for Youtube today - and I'm really excited about it, because for some reason I don't know how everyone just doesn't know about this already, but first pump the brakes. Okay, I want to talk about really quick how my thumbnail game has evolved over the years. Okay, I uploaded a video way back in the day that got 12 million views over 12 million views, and I created the thumbnail with a microsoft word: okay, it's! If that doesn't scream simplicity is king. I honestly don't know what does Microsoft Word created a thumbnail that got me over 12 million views on a single video? Now I'm not saying go use Microsoft Word it's the best program out there to use for creating thumbnails.

Please do not do that. I'm just saying that simplicity is king when it comes to creating these thumbnails anyway, there's tons of free programs and services out there that you can use that are so much better in today's world than when I started back in the day. Now I boast about a program called it's amazing. I talk about that in all of my youtube courses by the way, if you want to learn more about my youtube courses, check the link in the description, but I boasts about all the time.

That's not what we're gon na be talking about today, we're actually going to be talking about a program, slash service called canva when canva first launched it absolutely blew up. Many people loved it. Why? Because it's super simple to use and has some great functionality, plus some really great templates, already picked out for you, I'm literally gon na be creating the thumbnail for this video that you're watching that you clicked on before you saw my view face in this video. Okay, we're gon na be creating it in canvas, so there are no excuses, so the step-by-step guide is starting in three two one.

So this is canva.com again you just come on here. You can create a profile. It's free! You don't need the premium to do really. Anything that great, I honestly use the free version you can log in and pretty much just get familiar with it.

I come down into this social media section and there's so many pre-built templates. This is why canva is amazing, so simple, it's easy to try it. So it's awesome. I love it.

You've got all these great templates on yours. So if you're down here in the social media, you can scroll across and cheat right here, YouTube thumbnail, go ahead and click that and you've got a bunch of great auto-generated templates that you can actually use. Customize find the one you like and actually use and remember, simplicity is key, but alright, let's scroll down this list and see if I anything jumps out to me. I really do like these, but that's big on just the background image.

So I'm just gon na keep scrolling until I see something that I kind of like I kind of like that, one right there I might end up scrolling back up for that one. This is another great one right here, again simplicity, one of my eyes drawn to you right now. This one looks a little too professional. That's another thing! You don't want to get too professional with your with your thumbnails, but you do want to get them looking good.

Looking awesome, so I do like this one looks kind of good again a little little too professional, but that image and the dog looks awesome and really pops. So I might end up actually clicking on that one later on, but I'm just scrolling through and seeing. If there's anything that I really really really like right now, these are all looking a little too professional for me, so I'm just gon na keep scrolling canvas got some great templates that you can pick from. These are all pretty great, this one's simple and awesome, but really relies on it being a gaming thumbnail.

You know, and I think I'm going to scroll back up actually and I'm either click on this one. I kind of like this one here, this one's good. I mean it pops, it looks awesome. It does look pretty good.

I might want to roll with that, but I'm just gon na. I think I'm gon na go back to this one actually cuz. I really like this one very simple, very awesome and very easy to customize, so once you're here and you're like okay, I like this. This is the style I want to go with.

You need to decide how it's gon na apply to your specific video. So the video I'm making it for is obviously you thumbnail, so I'm gon na actually click on this, and I want to change this color to red. I want this to be. You know kind of youtube theme, so I'm gon na keep it red right there and yeah.

I think I'm just gon na leave it like that next thing, I'm gon na do is actually come down here and delete this. I don't really need this. This whole box right here, so I'm just gon na delete this whole thing, come up here at the little trash. Can this box really don't need it either? So I'm gon na hit that trashcan next thing I want to do, though, is possibly change that background image.

Although it does look pretty good, but I think I want to change it see if I can find something just a little bit better. Actually, you know what no I'm gon na come in here and actually change our text. First, get a good idea of the layout of this before I pick an image, because I want some certain things to be shown, so I'm gon na just put right here, I'm just gon na go for a YouTube thumbnail! Okay, YouTube thumbnail! Probably just leave it like that, I couldn't even leave the basics of. I mean that even fits our theme even more, but I could leave it like that.

I mean I could even leave our text, basics of YouTube, thumbnail or thumbnails rather, and a lot of actually making a thumbnail comes down and just playing around with it and seeing what you like best so the more I look at that. I think the more I just want to say YouTube thumbnails, maybe I'll come in, and actually you know edit this. So it looks a little bit more focused on just the YouTube thumbnails come up here, maybe add in some free Plus eat now, maybe not plus just free and easy. You know free and easy YouTube.

Thumbnails, probably gon na, want to end up moving this in this box. Don't know if I want it right above here, yet nice and center that's another thing about canva is it makes it all perfectly centered like that? It's almost like PowerPoint make some really easy, designed images for you, and that looks pretty good, although I kind of want to emphasize the free-and-easy a little bit more. So I just kind of want to sit back and look at it for a little bit and kind of decide what I want to do maybe coming here and make this background just a little bit brighter. I think of a little bit stronger of a red.

It stands out a little bit better, so I'm gon na bring it in to about right there that looks kind of good, so I'll, just kind of leave it at that yeah that that looks a lot better. It pops a little bit more, but again, I still kind of want to emphasize that free and easy. So I'm trying to think about how I could do that. Another good way to get a good feel of how your thumbnail is gon na look is to actually zoom out a ton if you can zoom out by let's say 50 to 25 %.

Let's go to. Let's go down to 25 %, that's pretty much! How people are be viewing your thumbnail they're, not gon na see it super big. So when you think about simplicity versus complex, remember, you want to say super simple, because if you go all the way to 10 %, what does they only see it like that? What if it's, that small they're gon na go? Okay, this video is about YouTube thumbnails, but I have no idea what that says right there. So I guess it's just about YouTube thumbnails! You know the more I look at it.

I kind of want to change that that background a little bit cuz. It doesn't really fit so I'm gon na go into my uploads real, quick right here, and so I'm going to upload an image and I got a pulled up in my second monitor. So you can't quite see it, but pretty much. I just select an image on my um on my computer, something I found on Google.

It's uploading right there, so I'm gon na go ahead and click on this see what it looks like in here drop it in and pretty much you can just plug in plug and play. In the background, we got okay that looks so much better go ahead and go out 10 %. I think that looks better from a perspective of me, so you know I was. I was looking at this for a while, and I'm saying you know what I think it might need some sort of human touch to it.

So I basically got a picture of me right here. I got a picture of me pointing I don't want to replace the background, so I just want to do this real, quick and I'm gon na go ahead and make sure I make myself a little bit bigger. I might make myself just a little bit bigger kind of like right there. I'm thinking thinking I don't.

I might need to be a little bit bigger. Also another thing with that: canva, which is a little bit fun angle. You it's something like I'm, not a huge fan of. Is you if you replace it on the background? I'm not really sure.

Maybe I just haven't used canva enough, but you don't want to be like replacing the background. So sometimes you can't go into the background like that, so I usually just like move another box in front of me and then I'll grab myself again and be able to move myself over that way. I don't know if there's a workaround of that, you know I'm not a pro in canva. I barely used it, but that just shows how easy it is to use, because you can get a lot done without knowing a lot about it.

But anyway, so I mean I'm thinking, we do something like this. That way. I've got a personal touch and I got a picture myself and if you're thinking well hold on Sean, how did you get a cutout of yourself very simple? You do it like paint.net just trace around the lines of you, and it's really not that hard, so you might even be able to do it in in canva. I'm not even I'm not entirely sure all right.

So that looks pretty good right there. I think that looks a little bit more like a human touch to it. I might add in like a little background kind of glow, and then I think what I want to do is just get rid of the free-and-easy. I kind of want to just get rid of it just because you know I'm already, I'm already gon na be safe, free and easy, and my title so I don't necessarily know if I want to add it into my thumbnail again.

Simplicity is king yeah. I mean, I think, that that is pretty much a full centum know that looks really good. Some things to keep in mind, though you kind of want to keep this corner pretty much empty, because that's for the timestamp of the video is gon na be so I like to keep that kind of empty if you're gon na be deciding on how you want To format the the the thumbnail - and I think this looks pretty good - I mean a lot of focus on just YouTube. Thumbnails, it's very basic.

Again. Simplicity is king. I got a lot of pop to myself. I mean it's just like pointing at this YouTube thumbnails good to go YouTube background I mean I'd, say we're pretty much good to go.

Only other thing I even think about doing is probably changing the font. I already changed right there and it looks a little bit less professional. I always like to think is YouTube a place to not be professional, so I try to be as unprofessional as possible, while also being somewhat professional. So it's kind of that even balance, but I got Barlow black on this right now.

It looks kind of good that might be a little bit too much. Don't really want that when someone go back to Barlow tons of fonts on here by the way, which is a phenomenal thing to have, because when you start creating more and more thumbnails you're gon na think, a lot of them are just a little bit too boring And look the same and that's because of the font. Falling is always the hardest thing for me to pick, but I think you know at some time you pick a few that you like and then you just kind of stick to them. So I kind of like to want to have right now it kind of makes it a little bit less professional, so I think I'll probably just end up leaving it, even though I love to just keep scrolling through fonts to see what something looks like.

I love monster at this is one of my favorite fonts of all time. So if you never know what font to use just use one of these guys because they're awesome and amazing now bold, this one looks kind of good. I mean it kind of popped. You pretty much wanted to sync, which ones pop for you like that that pops pretty well I'm gon na zoom out really quick, just see what we're kind of working with here like now it looks decent.

You know that that one looks decent. Oh whoa didn't even do that ctrl Z on that one, it looks decent again if the font, you know, like grabs your attention. That means it's gon na, hopefully grab the viewers attention again, just pick a font that you like stick with it and boom, and there we go. There's our finished thumbnail that we're using on this video very simple.

Only took me a couple minutes got it all locked down, and you know I think it looks great. I mean it's simple to the point. It'll be great for this video for the purpose of it and again it took us a couple minutes. You really want to be focusing on the content itself.

Long looks decent you'll be alright. Well, that's pretty much how you create a great-looking thumbnail in canva, and I will say it's gon na. Take you a little bit of time to really just get familiar with canva to lock it all down, get your personalized channel flare figured out, but once you got it all figured out once you spend a little bit of time in it, you can save your template In canva and then it's all just plug and play and easy and awesome for your channel and again great thumbnails on YouTube are huge if you aren't uploading custom thumbnails for your YouTube videos right now. I don't know if you'll ever find YouTube success.

But if there's a channel without custom thumbnails that has over a hundred thousand subscribers, then Wow, but ultimately, hopefully you learned something new. If you're new around here consider clicking that subscribe button to check out some of the other great content, I have I'm always releasing some great content on this channel to help you grow on YouTube, as well as some other really awesome stuff. And if you really want to take your YouTube game to the next level check out my youtube match class link down below at least go check. It out see what it's all about.

I guarantee you're, not gon na, be disappointed with it, but again Sean's the name. Youtube's the game. I wish you all the best of luck on here and I will see you in the next video.