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