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The Best YouTube Banner Size in 2022
In an ideal world, you would be able to design a single banner for your company and use it across all of your marketing channels. That single banner would easily fit on your website and across all of your social media channels, and it would be effective year after year. In 2022, you wouldn’t need to look up the best YouTube banner size to use. You can learn graphic design through Blue Sky Graphics online graphic design course.
The ideal YouTube banner size for 2022
A YouTube banner must be at least 2048 pixels wide and 1152 pixels tall. If you try to upload a smaller image, you will receive an error.
The best YouTube banner size, according to YouTube, is 2560 pixels wide by 1440 pixels tall. However, keep in mind that YouTube channel art looks different on desktop than it does on mobile. When you share the channel on other social media channels, the banner will be displayed differently depending on which social media channel you share to.
This means you should keep your logo and any text you use within YouTube’s minimum safety area of 1560 pixels wide by 423 pixels tall. If your text or logo falls outside of those areas, it will be partially or completely cut off when viewers view the image on mobile devices or other social media networks.
Here’s a simplified template that demonstrates how the YouTube background appears in various scenarios (depending on the device and screen size used):
Template for YouTube Banner Size
If you’re going to work on your YouTube background manually, such as in Photoshop or another tool, you can download this image and use it as a template. It’s exactly the right size for YouTube.
Best practises for creating a YouTube banner
Using the best YouTube banner size is just the start. If you want to attract people to your channel with your banner, you should also adhere to some best practises:
1. Consider the size first.
We started this article with the best YouTube banner size for a reason: if your image is too large, parts of it will be cut off. If the image is too small, you may not be able to upload it at all to YouTube. Furthermore, if your text or logo falls outside of YouTube’s recommended minimum safety area, important parts of the images will be lost when your channel is viewed on mobile.
Some graphic design software, such as Adobe Photoshop, include built-in features that allow you to easily perfect the placement of your logo and any text in your image.
2. Keep your text to a minimum.
The main reason to keep your text to a minimum is to keep it within the safety zone, but YouTube is also a visual platform. Users prefer not to see a lot of text.
Many popular YouTube channels use only their channel name in their banner.
3. Pay attention to your brand’s colours.
Emphasizing the brand colours specified in your brand style guide will assist viewers in recognising the channel as belonging to your company. You can accomplish this in a variety of ways, including:
Make a solid colour background for your banner using one of your brand colours.
Select a background image that incorporates one or more of your brand’s colours.
Include text in one or more of your company’s colours.
Make use of a colour version of your logo.
You can also use these techniques to create a more cohesive aesthetic for your channel when creating thumbnails.
4. Demonstrate the style of your channel’s videos.
Do your videos have animation? What about live action? Are they entirely focused on you, or are there other people on camera? Choose an image that gives viewers a sense of what their videos will look like.
5. Think about a call-to-action.
Every interaction someone has with your brand should encourage them to interact with it again, whether it’s by watching another video, subscribing to your channel, or purchasing one of your products. You can do this by using powerful imagery that demonstrates what your channel is all about, or by including a direct call to action.
Your call to action should be based on your current YouTube channel goals. For instance, if you run a WordPress tutorial channel and your current goal is to gain more subscribers, you could ask viewers to “Subscribe for tutorials.”
The YouTube Studio also allows you to overlay your banner with a bar with links to other social media profiles, product pages, or your website. If you want your YouTube followers to look at your products or services, you can use your call to action to direct them to those links.
Whatever call to action you choose, make sure it fits within the banner’s safety zone. You don’t want the text to be cut off awkwardly when people check out your channel on their phones.
Finally, some thoughts
Choosing the best YouTube banner size is critical, but it is only the first step toward creating successful channel art. Remember the following rules when creating a banner that draws viewers deeper into your YouTube channel:
Keep critical design elements within the safety zone.
Use your company’s colours.
Text should be kept to a minimum, and an image in the same style as your videos should be used.
Think about including a call to action.
To ensure success, use a high-quality graphic design tool.
If this is your first time creating a YouTube brand channel, you may also be interested in our guides to organising your channel and promoting your channel to new audiences.
