0:02 what makes a good thumbnail that gets
0:05 clicked composition is King baby when
0:07 I'm talking to creators we'll talk about
0:08 the title we'll talk about the thumbnail
0:09 and then I'll say Okay now what's your
0:12 first 5 seconds I made a thumbnail with
0:15 Max it's an image of him with a cow with
0:16 a police officer and then you click the
0:19 video and right away you're confirmed
0:20 he's literally walking around the
0:24 Streets of London with a cow with a beer
0:27 in his hand and it is an immediate
0:29 payoff and that video I think has like 5
0:31 million 6 million or something like that
0:33 making sure those first 5 to 10 seconds
0:34 have some sort of payoff to the
0:36 thumbnail you got to just press record
0:40 David altiser is on the think media
0:42 channel today and I'm excited because
0:44 dude you've worked for a lot of
0:46 different YouTube channels now you have
0:48 this next transition to thumbnail design
0:50 yeah first of all tell us like what kind
0:52 of YouTube channels are you working on
0:55 and then are you tell us your thumbnail
0:56 design process how are these big
0:59 YouTubers like you know how do they do
1:01 it and you know break down that process
1:04 sure yeah so I'm I'm currently working
1:06 pretty much full-time with Curtis Connor
1:09 folks he's a a comedian commentary
1:11 Channel and he and I have really
1:12 developed a great kind of design
1:14 language based off of what he was
1:16 already doing but I've kind of
1:19 simplified it down and kind of elevated
1:21 it is what I told him I was like I've
1:23 been a fan of your work for years and
1:25 you know you've he kind of created this
1:29 like yellow uh helvetica font style on
1:31 top of him like giving a crazy reaction
1:33 with a bunch of messy stuff behind it I
1:36 call it the Scrapbook uh style uh
1:38 because it looks like a scrapbook it
1:39 looks like somebody took pictures and
1:42 cut them out and then pasted them on a
1:45 picture and so he kind of actually
1:46 humbly said yeah I think I created this
1:48 style but now almost every commentary
1:50 channel does that format so I want to
1:52 highlight that like he has the ability
1:55 to kind of own that style cuz he
1:56 literally pioneered it but we needed to
1:58 elevate it and that simply meant
2:00 simplifying it cleaning it up
2:03 and thankfully with Curtis I'm given a
2:06 really you know high quality uh video
2:08 file of him giving me faces so usually
2:11 he'll have the title in mind he'll maybe
2:13 even have most of the video shot and
2:14 then we'll get on the phone and maybe
2:17 discuss you know the thumbnail and he
2:19 because he's so intuitive and he's been
2:21 a YouTuber for so many years he kind of
2:23 just knows what what it should be and so
2:24 he'll tell me like hey here's what I'm
2:26 thinking and then I'll spitball some
2:29 ideas then he'll give me like you know a
2:32 10 or 20 second clip of him giving me
2:34 like three or four different faces and
2:36 you know he has a nice camera and nice
2:38 lighting and so I'm able to just pull
2:40 that out and stick it on and then almost
2:42 everything else though is like generated
2:44 either with AI or from the assets that
2:47 he's referring to one of the things that
2:49 has been really helpful with my career
2:53 is AI upscaling so I work with Cody CO
2:56 as well and uh Curtis Connor those both
2:58 those guys do reaction content and often
2:59 the things they're reacting to are Tik
3:02 Tok or like really lowquality images and
3:04 so in the past their thumbnails would
3:07 almost look a little uh kind of low
3:09 quality because like they're just
3:11 reacting to this really you know blurry
3:13 object maybe they even scale up to it or
3:15 whatever like scale into it there's some
3:18 tools like uh topaz and another tool
3:20 that I use called magnific AI which is
3:22 extremely expensive I don't necessarily
3:24 want to recommend this to everybody but
3:27 if it's something that it's $40 a month
3:30 it's extremely pricey but okay it is
3:32 but because I'm doing this full-time I'm
3:34 making you know two to four thumbnails a
3:36 day and I use it every day it's become
3:39 you know part of my budget part of my
3:41 workflow they also have a free trial so
3:42 if you want to try it out you could try
3:44 it out but what it does is it uses some
3:46 of the same technology that you see in
3:48 mid Journey but it takes like an image
3:51 that you import into it and it creates
3:54 AI on top of like from from a pixel for
3:57 Pixel basis it replicates what it's
4:00 seeing underneath the AI that makes
4:02 sense so like when I input it it's going
4:05 to Output a really sharp crisp
4:07 representation of what I inputed uh
4:10 using AI so like if it's somebody that
4:12 if if I have a photo of a person that's
4:14 not recognizable it's not a famous
4:16 person I can just put it in there and
4:18 it'll spit out a sharper cleaner image
4:21 essentially uh so I use that all all the
4:22 time now so that's kind of been my like
4:26 little secret sauce uh but with Max give
4:27 us all the secret sauce what other what
4:30 other AI tools or you know give give us
4:32 all of it this is awesome I'm loving it
4:35 the thing that I love to use for mockups
4:39 uh right now is actually chat GPT 4 with
4:41 Dolly so dolly is their like version of
4:44 mid Journey which is an AI art uh
4:46 creation tool and it's not as advanced
4:48 as mid Journey it's not even as advanced
4:50 as some of the other tools that are out
4:52 there but what is so great about the
4:56 chat GPT AI art uh creation is that you
4:58 can talk to it like a human and so I
5:00 will actually just start talking to it
5:03 and I'll just say hello my name is David
5:06 altiser I am a YouTuber who makes
5:09 content about cameras and I'm doing a
5:11 review on a new Sony camera that's brand
5:13 new it does this this and this like I
5:15 give it all the the context of like what
5:18 that video is and then you say I want a
5:21 thumbnail where I'm off center and the
5:23 camera is focused with leading lines
5:24 leading into the camera so that the
5:28 viewer can see that camera and uh like
5:30 their eyes go to that but I still want
5:32 to be in the image you know give me a
5:34 mockup and then it just will spit out a
5:35 mockup and I'm like okay cool now can we
5:38 do it a little darker and blah blah blah
5:40 and so then I'll maybe have four or five
5:42 mockups of a thumbnail and I could even
5:44 input like a photo of my face and be
5:47 like okay here's here's my face make
5:49 sure that the subject kind of looks like
5:51 me and so then it'll kind of create you
5:53 know a subject that sort of looks like
5:54 that and if you're watching the think
5:55 media video right now you can see some
5:57 of the examples that I've done this one
5:59 specifically is with Hayden hiler Smith
6:00 he was doing a video where he was
6:03 talking about a film that he made and he
6:05 wanted to have kind of like the before
6:06 and after he wanted to have leading
6:09 lines going into the center of the frame
6:11 and we had a bunch of mock-ups and we
6:13 landed on this one as our format and I
6:16 was able to take that mockup and
6:18 basically just plug in the actual assets
6:20 into that and I didn't really even use
6:23 any of the AI stuff but it was such a
6:26 wonderful way to collaborate with AI to
6:28 spit out something that we wouldn't have
6:30 even thought of just kind of that
6:31 collaboration you might hear all the
6:33 time with Mr Beast and Ryan Tran and
6:35 many others talking about how you need
6:38 to have uh YouTuber friends you need to
6:39 have people to work with and I I don't
6:42 think this rep uh replaces that but if
6:44 you are just getting started using this
6:46 is a great way to collaborate with
6:49 something it is just a robot but but
6:52 it's so uh amazing how how how great
6:54 this is and and just seeing something at
6:56 least for me I'm such a visual learner
6:57 when I see something I'm like oh that
6:59 makes me think of this can you add this
7:01 to it and then it just does it and I
7:03 might have again like five or six
7:05 mockups that I can then show the client
7:07 we then dial it down to like one or two
7:09 and then I just use that as a way to
7:11 kind of get started so that we kind of
7:13 know where we're going with it I think
7:14 that's a hard part for a lot of people
7:16 is they don't know where to start so the
7:18 fact I mean you're giving away the
7:20 secrets here which is amazing and I
7:22 actually I've experimented a little bit
7:24 with chat gbt 4 but like you're
7:25 encouraging me to go do that more so
7:28 this is this is really really cool are
7:31 there any other prompts that you do
7:32 because you're really just using this to
7:34 get ideas right that's the ultimate goal
7:36 is you're trying to you're trying to
7:39 spark inspiration on how to actually you
7:41 know compose and set up the thumbnail is
7:43 that right correct yeah and and every
7:45 once in a while I will create
7:48 backgrounds uh using AI mid journey is
7:50 better but you know what's funny about
7:53 mid journey is it's so Advanced uh now
7:56 that it looks very photo and it starts
7:57 to do what you were talking about
8:00 earlier about how like the so many
8:02 little details that you have to remove
8:05 so like mid Journey looks so photo real
8:08 that like I'll receive a background that
8:09 that looks like a real photo but like
8:11 there's wires in the background there's
8:13 like a blue trash can over here and like
8:15 I need to clean it all up whereas chat
8:19 chbt is not as advanced so some would
8:21 argue that it doesn't look as realistic
8:23 but it's more simple and minimalistic
8:25 because it's not not as advanced so like
8:29 I find chat gbt's Dolly image creation
8:31 definitely good enough for thumbnails if
8:33 anything I kind of like how simple it is
8:36 because it usually spits out uh an AI
8:37 image that's pretty simple and
8:39 minimalistic and then what I'll do is
8:42 I'll actually take that Dolly image
8:44 which again isn't as advanced as what
8:46 mid Journey does but then I'll input it
8:48 into magnific which is what I was
8:50 talking about earlier and it then takes
8:52 that AI generated image and makes it
8:55 look photo real so I have this very
8:58 simple clean AI image that I then input
9:00 into magnific which then converts it to
9:03 looking realistic and sharp and then I
9:05 pull that into Photoshop and use that as
9:07 an asset that's super cool I love that
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9:53 description of this video I do want to
9:56 talk about what makes a good thumbnail
9:59 and and uh you know and even people too
10:02 they might hear this and they assume in
10:04 order to make good thumbnails they they
10:06 need AI tools and they need Photoshop
10:09 and you really don't great a great
10:10 example is I saw on your just like
10:12 personal Channel it has like half a
10:14 million views and it's the 4K forget
10:18 ssds iPhone 15 Pro records SD cards and
10:21 the thumbnail is so simple and there's
10:24 just a little bit of text and did you
10:26 click the video watch the intro did you
10:28 see the intro yeah so that's what I was
10:30 gonna mention too is that's a great
10:32 example and I'm I'm curious if you if
10:34 you did this on purpose and if you see
10:35 other because I noticed Ryan will do
10:38 this sometimes and other YouTubers but
10:40 when you click on that video there's a
10:42 direct payoff because it's actually it
10:43 looks like a screenshot of the opening
10:46 frame so tell me is that a strategy that
10:51 you use and and uh 100% okay yes yeah uh
10:53 in fact I'd say the the greatest success
10:56 in that conversation with my work uh is
10:59 with Max I think the title is I broke in
11:01 front of the police it's an image of him
11:03 with a cow with a police officer and
11:05 then you click the video and right away
11:08 you're you're confirmed he's literally
11:10 walking around the Streets of London
11:13 with a cow with a beer in his hand and
11:16 it is an immediate payoff and that video
11:18 I think has like 5 million 6 million
11:19 views or something like that I also
11:21 tried it with Curtis Curtis is a
11:24 different he has a very dedicated very
11:26 strong following loyal fan base so he
11:28 could sort of like rant for 2 minutes at
11:30 the beginning and people will still
11:31 watch it he'll still get 2 million views
11:34 even if he took 3 minutes to get to the
11:36 point but I I have been encouraging him
11:39 to uh have intros that match the
11:41 thumbnail or maybe like a teaser at the
11:42 beginning and he's been seeing success
11:45 with that as well so yes this is 100% a
11:47 strategy and one of the things I forgot
11:50 to bring up when I'm talking to creators
11:51 is we'll talk about the title we'll talk
11:52 about the thumbnail and then I'll say
11:55 Okay now what's your first 5 seconds and
11:58 like literally that is part of the
11:59 discussion when we're talking about
12:01 thumbnails is like making sure those
12:03 first 5 to 10 seconds have some sort of
12:05 payoff to the thumbnail because we do
12:07 live in a unfortunately in a day and age
12:09 on YouTube where people will maybe put
12:11 something that would be considered
12:13 clickbait on the thumbnail and you click
12:14 it and it's completely different you
12:16 know it's just it's not what the
12:17 thumbnail is they were just trying to
12:19 get you to click on it and so I think
12:22 simply telling the truth uh goes a long
12:25 way with all things you know in life uh
12:28 but in particular with videos if you are
12:31 really you can kind of enhance the
12:33 thumbnail make it cleaner make it pop
12:35 make it look better to like get get
12:37 somebody's attention but it still needs
12:40 to have a baseline truth telling aspect
12:42 to it that you are paying off as quickly
12:45 as possible especially if you're a a new
12:48 Creator I think a lot of bigger creators
12:50 that you may watch you could maybe have
12:52 an argument with me on it's like well
12:53 they don't do it it's like well yeah
12:55 they have 6 million subscribers and
12:56 they're averaging 1 million views per
12:59 video if you remember if any of you were
13:02 Casey neistat fans during the Vlog era
13:04 did you care what title or thumbnail was
13:06 on that video no you just clicked it and
13:08 watched it because you became a fan of
13:10 Casey iat's daily Vlogs and anytime he
13:12 would post you would watch it the
13:13 thumbnail and title was almost
13:16 irrelevant you know for the most part so
13:18 I think those are two different models
13:19 and Curtis definitely has that a little
13:22 bit too but anyways the intro and the
13:24 thumbnail need to kind of match in my
13:27 opinion I think that's kind of a secret
13:30 uh secret trick that you you can do and
13:31 I've done it with my own videos like you
13:33 said that was just a video took me 2
13:34 hours to make it but I had that
13:37 intention of like shooting the thumbnail
13:38 and I actually edit the thumbnail before
13:40 I edit my video so when I'm doing my own
13:42 videos I'll actually get my thumbnail
13:44 finished before I even start my thumb my
13:46 my actual Video Edit and then that kind
13:49 of can almost dictate the video in a way
13:51 at least the intro yeah that's really
13:54 good what are other tips you have on
13:56 what makes a good thumbnail that gets
13:59 clicked composition is King baby so
14:02 composition is is King for all things
14:03 when it comes to cinematography when it
14:05 comes to photography when it comes to
14:08 Fine Art and the same is true with
14:10 thumbnails any form of art composition
14:13 is King you may have heard that in other
14:15 uh niches can you explain what
14:17 composition is yes the the easiest way
14:18 to look at it and again I would
14:21 recommend everybody go outside of the
14:23 YouTube box or the YouTube bubble that
14:26 we live in and and study art study Fine
14:28 Art study why certain paintings are
14:30 actually good study why certain films
14:33 and filmmakers are great at storytelling
14:35 and I think that's such a great way to
14:37 have a rich kind of understanding and
14:39 Baseline of like what actually looks
14:41 good that's how you develop your taste
14:43 and that's how you you were asking
14:45 earlier like you don't want to just copy
14:47 other YouTubers if you have all these
14:50 input sources from other uh genres of
14:53 film making photography and Fine Art
14:54 those things are going to come into play
14:56 when you make your thumbnails so that
14:58 your thumbnails actually look completely
14:59 unique Technic Tech Al but you're
15:00 actually pulling from all these other
15:03 sources anyways the way that I get
15:05 started and you can download my asset
15:31 Bo in that Tic Tac Toe grid as its own
15:34 image in of itself and having an
15:36 understanding of of image balance is
15:39 really important too so for example if I
15:42 had a bunch of the weight of the image
15:43 I'm saying that in air quotes but if I
15:45 had like the subject on the right hand
15:48 side of the image and I had like a car
15:49 on the right but then there was just a
15:51 big sky on the left and it was just
15:54 empty the image would feel lops side it
15:55 would feel like all the weight of the
15:58 image is on the right and so you can you
16:00 want to balance that out almost as if
16:02 all the objects in your frame are on a
16:04 scale you balance that out by maybe
16:06 putting a big piece of text on the left
16:09 that that can then be a size that sort
16:11 of matches what's on the right hand side
16:13 and that starts to balance the frame or
16:15 you move your subject into the middle
16:17 you move all the objects on the right
16:19 and then you have text on the top left
16:20 or something like that the asset pack
16:22 that I'm giving away for free too also
16:25 includes the time code uh in the right
16:27 scaling and the rounded edges that
16:29 YouTube has as well so if if you haven't
16:32 noticed right now YouTube rounds all the
16:34 corners of your thumbnail on the home
16:36 screen and on the Subscribe feed and
16:37 it's different on mobile and it's
16:40 different on desktop the roundedness is
16:42 actually more round on a mobile device
16:44 and it's less round on a desktop the
16:46 time code is also larger on a phone and
16:48 the time code is smaller on desktop and
16:50 what I mean by that is on the bottom
16:52 right hand side of the thumbnail you'll
16:56 see the length of the video uh that is
16:57 always taken into account when I'm
16:59 making my thumbnails you never want to
17:00 have text or anything important on that
17:03 bottom right side so you can basically
17:06 put text or things top left top right
17:08 bottom left but never touch the bottom
17:11 right and I almost treat that time code
17:14 as part of my composition so if that big
17:17 chunky 10 minute and 16sec time code is
17:19 on the bottom right I kind of want to
17:20 balance that somehow by putting
17:23 something on the left hand side of that
17:25 rule of thirds to then balance that time
17:28 code because again people are are not
17:31 viewing the thumbnail as just an image
17:33 especially on a you know 27inch monitor
17:35 which is what I have at my desk here
17:38 they're viewing it mostly on a phone and
17:40 certainly now on TVs as well which has
17:42 been really exciting as well because of
17:44 the TV model if your creator or if
17:46 you're a Creator who has a lot of TV
17:48 viewership you could have a little bit
17:50 more detail going on in the image and
17:52 I've seen that work really well Mark
17:54 Rober for example has had some
17:55 successful thumbnails I mean he's very
17:57 successful in general but he's had some
18:00 that were very highly detailed but still
18:02 very simple in idea so I think that's
18:05 where the confusion can be you you can
18:07 have detail like if it's a big explosion
18:09 with like fire and stuff but it's still
18:11 just an explosion there's not wires
18:13 there's not different colors mixing and
18:15 matching but there is details within
18:17 that so if you're a TV viewer you can do
18:18 that and we're able to get away with
18:20 that with the editing podcast for
18:22 example which has a large TV viewership
18:25 audience so anyways composition we could
18:27 go on a tangent with that for a long
18:30 time I personally really like having the
18:32 subject on the left hand side of the
18:34 image because of that time code but I
18:36 also do a lot where the subject is just
18:40 dead center with leading lines going
18:42 into the middle but again do some
18:44 research outside of YouTube and study
18:46 composition some of the best painters
18:47 and some of the best artists in the
18:49 world have some of the best compositions
18:51 that you can learn from and I would
18:52 highly encourage you to go outside of
18:55 YouTube to learn that to be honest it's
18:56 funny because I've heard people say the
18:59 opposite of they enjoy putting
19:02 or prefer putting the the face on the
19:04 right hand side like you SE the Mr Beast
19:07 reacts videos because the time code just
19:09 kind of covers like maybe like the neck
19:11 or the shirt or something yeah that
19:12 works too yeah that totally works I've
19:15 done that with Curtis just depends but
19:18 yeah there's never one answer that fits
19:20 right for every single thumbnail right
19:22 depending on your audience you know we
19:25 read left to right so in America and in
19:27 the English-speaking in most countries
19:29 read left to right right it just depends
19:31 on like what you want them to see first
19:35 so in the Beast reacts you can sort of
19:37 on your peripheral see that it's Beast
19:39 so you know exactly what it is it's the
19:41 same face every time too so like there's
19:44 nothing there but for Curtis like his
19:47 audience is so dedicated to Curtis that
19:48 like I kind of want people to just see
19:50 Curtis's face first because as soon as
19:52 they see it they'll probably just click
19:54 on it but but if he's reacting to
19:56 something wacky and crazy that is like
19:57 going to get a a click then maybe I'll
20:00 put that off to the you know so that's
20:01 how I'm thinking about it is like what
20:03 do you want them to see first because we
20:06 read left to right they may actually see
20:11 that leftand rule of third first so if
20:12 it's the game that you want the focus to
20:14 be on then put that on the left if it's
20:16 the Creator then put them on the left
20:17 you know with Cody Co he's always on the
20:19 left for the most part what what do you
20:21 think about text on a thumbnail when
20:24 should people use text or arrows or
20:26 certain circles elements like that and
20:30 when should they not text on on a
20:32 thumbnail so I think you and I would
20:34 would be in agreeance on keeping things
20:37 as simple and uh minimal as possible so
20:39 uh Jerry Seinfeld has this famous quote
20:41 where he says that when he's writing a
20:44 joke he takes one word out at a time
20:46 until the joke doesn't make any sense
20:48 anymore and then he puts that last word
20:50 back in so I think that should be the
20:52 same philosophy when you're creating a
20:55 thumbnail and especially with text how
20:56 many words can you remove before it
20:58 doesn't make sense anymore so like even
21:00 if you you can just have one word that
21:03 would be great you know why is a good
21:05 one with a question mark or how or uh
21:07 you know those are are good because they
21:09 can they can play off of whatever title
21:11 you have to create some sort of open
21:13 loop that makes people want to click so
21:15 I would just keep it simple you know
21:17 find a font that you really like that is
21:20 clean and bold but maybe even something
21:22 that that not many creators are using so
21:24 that you can start to kind of own that
21:27 font in a way you know tryan has kind of
21:29 owned that like very simple helvetica
21:32 font style and many others are are using
21:34 it I would I would have just encouraged
21:36 other creators to yeah you can be
21:38 inspired by tryan but maybe find a
21:39 different font that looks a little
21:40 different that way you can start to kind
21:42 of use that as part of your branding but
21:45 I would keep it to like a minimum of you
21:47 know or a maximum of like three to four
21:51 words if you can again Curtis has done
21:52 more words because sometimes they'll
21:54 have like a whole sentence there I don't
21:56 know if how effective that is to be
21:58 completely honest it's just what Hees I
22:01 usually do the whole edit for Curtis and
22:03 then he'll actually do the text himself
22:05 because we found we were going back and
22:07 forth a lot where he'd be like put this
22:08 no put this move it over to the left I
22:10 was like how about this I'll just give
22:12 you the clean image you do the you do
22:14 the text so that's our working
22:16 relationship so you can get away with
22:18 more it just depends on the context but
22:20 I say good rule of thumb is keep it like
22:23 under four words and as far as arrows
22:25 and circles I don't use those as much as
22:28 I used to I think that might be again it
22:30 depends dep on the niche I think for you
22:31 with your basketball stuff like the
22:33 arrows and circles make a lot of sense
22:35 cuz you could almost not even have any
22:37 text it's just pointing to something or
22:39 circling something so just depends on
22:41 the niche really but I don't use a lot
22:43 of arrows in circles one thing too I
22:45 think most people get wrong in the
22:49 beginning is they just put the title for
22:51 text in their thumbnail and what you
22:53 need to realize is I like to think of my
22:56 title and my thumbnail as like a union
23:00 or like a combo punch a com attack and
23:02 so usually most people look at the
23:04 thumbnail first it catches their eye and
23:06 then they read the title which gives
23:08 more context to what they're looking at
23:10 and so that's how I kind of like to
23:11 approach things and I'm curious your
23:13 thoughts too because we'll see you know
23:15 people in our community a lot of times
23:18 are just putting the same exact title in
23:20 text and if you actually add something
23:21 that is completely different and can
23:24 spark curiosity make them look at the
23:26 image and then when they read the title
23:29 now they have maybe the context of what
23:31 they're clicking but how do you is there
23:33 any you know tips like that on how you
23:36 approach just that combination yeah I
23:38 would actually add to that and say that
23:41 the first 5 to 10 seconds is also part
23:43 of that same Union because if you if
23:44 you're successful and having a good
23:46 title and thumbnail and they're like
23:48 looking at it on their phone for a
23:49 second it's going to start autop playing
23:52 as well and so you've even noticed if
23:54 you look at even the most recent Mr
23:57 Beast videos he's removed all of the uh
23:59 kind of big bold uh text at the
24:01 beginning where it's like captioning
24:04 because the autoc captioning kicks in on
24:06 the autop play and if you have a bunch
24:10 of text going on on the video with the
24:12 closed captioning as well it kind of is
24:14 disorienting so I've even noticed he'll
24:17 actually turn off the captioning when he
24:20 does go to the Bold text on the frame
24:21 and then it'll kick back in when he
24:23 stops using that so you can actually
24:25 finagle that and kind of tweak it if you
24:28 do have text on like embedded in the
24:30 video itself that being said that's you
24:32 know that's beast in that style but I
24:34 would keep all three of those things in
24:37 mind uh as part of your strategy but um
24:39 absolutely you don't want to repeat the
24:42 uh the title in the thumbnail just like
24:43 if if this is the first time you're
24:45 hearing that from this point forward
24:47 don't ever do that like just just don't
24:51 okay so uh and just like use your
24:53 imagination on like what I can add to
24:54 this whether it's a question that you
24:57 can ask that can play off of that title
25:00 whether it's um you know how many days
25:02 you tried it or like I don't know it's
25:03 just when you're coming up with your
25:04 titles and thumbnails think about both
25:07 of them together and when I'm writing
25:09 out my ideas in Apple notes I'll like
25:12 I'll type the title out and then in
25:14 parenthesis I'll put whatever two or
25:16 three word text that I'm going to put
25:18 there in like a parenthesis so on the
25:20 thumbnail so it's like you really want
25:23 to think of both and it's to be honest I
25:24 think it takes a lot of courage and a
25:27 lot of boldness to not put text and I
25:29 would encourage you to maybe even
25:31 consider trying that because one of the
25:33 things that can really make you stand
25:35 out is by simply doing what everybody
25:39 else isn't doing and I've seen success
25:40 on a couple of thumbnails that I've done
25:44 where it was very focused very simple
25:45 the one I'm thinking of right now is uh
25:48 I did a thumbnail for frame Voyager
25:50 where it was uh Killian Murphy and he
25:52 was just in the middle uh I had like
25:53 some Inception stuff going on behind him
25:56 and I had some cool uh like atomic bomb
25:58 stuff from Oppenheimer behind him but it
26:00 was really focused really simple and you
26:02 could have put text there asking a
26:04 question but it really would have thrown
26:07 off the kind of Artistic integrity of it
26:09 and because his channel is a video essay
26:11 Channel it works really well for that so
26:13 I would encourage you to almost like
26:17 don't use text if you don't have to so
26:20 good this was a master class on YouTube
26:22 thumbnails you gave us a all the secrets
26:24 thanks for coming on David where can
26:26 people find you and learn more about
26:28 thumbnails and hang out with you yeah
26:30 well I started a new channel called
26:32 learn thumbnails where I'm going to be
26:34 going over all of these things and more
26:36 uh some of the work that I've done and
26:39 and I'm I'm starting that up uh I feel
26:42 encouraged by uh the support of Nolan
26:44 and many others so I'm building a whole
26:46 business around thumbnails and it's all
27:01 artists join us every Thursday we have a
27:02 thing called thumbnail Thursday on
27:05 Twitter spaces and you can jump in and
27:07 uh be a part of that conversation we've
27:09 got some amazing thumbnail artists who
27:13 work for arak trean many others who are
27:15 on the speaker panel and we'll we'll
27:16 talk each week about thumbnails about
27:18 the work that we're doing and then we
27:20 open it up to roasting at the end where
27:22 you we roast your thumbnails and give
27:25 tips and tricks so follow me on Twitter
