5 YouTube Thumbnail Tips That Drive More Clicks

Your YouTube thumbnail is the first thing viewers see before deciding to click. These five tips, drawn from creators generating billions of views, cover exactly what makes a thumbnail work.

We spoke to one of the best thumbnail artists in the business, Vy Qwaint. Vy, along with her partner Chad Wild Clay are the creators behind the wildly popular YouTube Hacker series. Creating stand-out custom thumbnails for their content is an integral part of the process, and Vy gave us a sneak peek into what works across their YouTube channels.

Vy and her team have tested and refined the type of thumbnails that drive viewers to click through to watch. It’s a strategy that’s worked to generate millions of subscribers and billions of views across the five YouTube channels Vy manages. She gave us some exclusive insights into the use of color, graphics and text to create the perfect image.

Tip #1 Use Color Strategically to Stop the Scroll

Bold, high-contrast colors are one of the most effective tools for making your thumbnail stand out in a crowded feed.

Vy explains that the content they create appeals to a younger demographic who respond really well to bright and vibrant colors. In order to maximize the appeal of the thumbnails, Vy and her team play with, enhance, and even radically change the YouTube thumbnail colors on the image until they get the results they know will work.

Using just Photoshop, colors are saturated, backgrounds are blurred to make the foreground objects stand out, and drop shadows and outer glows are used to further make those objects or text pop. Vy will also separate out the background and foreground on different layers for added image clarity and depth. To break this process down further, let’s take a look at the thumbnail Vy and her team created for ‘I Was Defeated by Project Zorgo Hacker’

You can see the image-editing expertise fully in action on this thumbnail. Vy has used a fairly blurred 2 color background on one layer, with herself and the hacker on another layer. The two figures have been outlined using the outer glow tool so they stand out, drawing the viewer's attention to Vy’s bright jacket and the white mask of the hacker.

The jacket is actually blue denim but Vy changes the color for every thumbnail she wears it for based on the other colors she's using. The team members mix and match complementary colors based on the background and the objects in the thumbnail, and Vy will often change the color of the jacket so it’s the opposite to what anyone else in the thumbnail is wearing. So while it looks like Vy owns 30 denim jackets of the same design, it’s actually just the one clothing item that’s been manipulated to bring out the very best in the custom thumbnail.

Vy and the team also use colors to create a sense of consistency across their thumbnails with splashes of the same color popping up across different images. This creates a motif that runs through their thumbnails and reinforces the branding and familiarity of the channels.

Bright, high-contrast colors work well, but the best colors for YouTube thumbnails will depend on your niche, audience, and brand style.

Tip #2 Limit Thumbnail Text to Three Words or Fewer

Too much text makes thumbnails unreadable at small sizes and clutters the visual story you're trying to tell.

Obviously this creates extra pressure on the designer who has to get the focus of the content over without spelling it out for the viewer. Vy and her team are world-class experts at this and know exactly when to use text only when necessary. When they do, it’s big and bright and it counts.

Vy confirms that a lot of rookie mistakes she sees with custom thumbnails on YouTube are trying to cram in as much text as possible. Unfortunately, it becomes almost impossible to read when you shrink the thumbnail down. When the graphic becomes too busy the viewer is going to have a hard time understanding what your video is about and they may not even click through to find out.

Vy’s team have solid rules for text use: use three words or less for any thumbnail, keep that text precise, and only ever use it if it makes the story complete. Also, think about the colors you use for the text to make it stand out. And don’t repeat the title in the thumbnail - ever!

Tip #3 Use Facial Expressions and Emotion to Create Curiosity

Strong emotional expressions, especially showing the whites of the eyes, create a human connection that drives clicks.

But Vy goes even further to create a sense of emotion with viewers. Not only does she want to attract viewers with facial expressions, but also with a sense of action and purpose from the people featured in the image. As this is rarely achieved from someone just standing still, she makes sure that Chad, herself, or the Hacker are in some kind of motion - like running or fighting back. The aim is to create a need for the audience to find out what happens next.

Tip #4 Plan Your Thumbnail Before You Start Filming

The art of the thumbnail is something Vy’s team considers before shooting even begins. The topic of the video, and the story around it is a critical starting point for the graphic. The base image isn’t taken from a screenshot, it’s shot separately and taken from one of many images created during the photoshoot.

Vy will take multiple shots from multiple angles so she has a wide range of creative assets to work from. Thumbnails are never an afterthought for the team, and are as important as creating the main video content.

Tip #5 Test Thumbnails Early and Replace Underperformers Fast

Monitor click-through rate in the first 48 hours after upload and be ready to swap the thumbnail before the data confirms what your instincts already tell you.Vy tracks the click through rates of all of their custom thumbnails in a spreadsheet and analyses the data for performance insights. But as an expert, she’ll use her experience and instinct to change up a thumbnail within the first 48 hours if the video isn’t getting the views - even before she can confirm the CTR. Talking of click through rates, Vy aims for a figure around 15%.

Pro Tip: Using tools like the vidIQ YouTube Thumbnail Maker makes it easy to generate multiple color variation and layouts, so finding your best YouTube thumbnail colors becomes fast and efficient.

Final Thoughts: Modern Thumbnail Success

Whether you’re designing thumbnails manually or leveraging AI, the fundamentals are the same: bold colors, strong emotions, minimal text, and continuous testing.

Huge thanks to Vy for letting vidIQ in on her insights and process around creating the best custom thumbnails on YouTube. As you can see, creators who are pulling in millions of views never leave their thumbnail to chance. And you shouldn't either.

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