Want video views? Work your thumbnails.

Thumbnails are so important to get right. Think of them as little billboards that need to practically scream, ‘Watch me! WATCH ME NOW!’

But, how do you make an attention-grabbing thumbnail? We’ve got this, and so do you. Here’s a quick guide:

• Use strong visuals. Our brains are hardwired to respond to striking imagery.

• Include a short title. Viewers need a quick burst of context.

• Make it pop. Contrast is key. It’s gotta be readable.

• Be consistent. Use the same style of fonts, bold colors, and strong designs.

• Personalise. Where possible, put yourself in frame to connect with your audience.

Tip: Use our handy Thumbnail preset for correct dimensions.

We’ve made a handful of templates for inspo, which are available in the app, to help you reel in those eyeballs. See the examples below.

What about JPEG’s?

These bad boys are ideal for the web. Social content, email, blog or banner; if it’s going online then it’s a safe bet to save it as a JPEG. The reason being that these files can be compressed to a small size for a quick share or download. Some of the image quality may get lost in the compression, but for web images this is usually okay.

And then we have PDF’s

These are for when you’re ready to print. Most printers will ask for you to send your design as a PDF file as it is a universal standard. This is because PDF’s are the safest bet for keeping all your design components intact and avoiding any unwelcome surprises when transposing your design from a digital file to a tangible object.

And that’s it! There are more image file formats out there, but for the best of us who create and share awesome designs with Over, the above is all we need to know.

Good News: We recently released a new ‘Export Preview’ feature so now you can view your image in a specific format to make sure that it is right before exporting.

Want video views? Work your thumbnails.

Level up your Youtube Thumbnails with Over