3 Free Ways to Create a YouTube Channel Banner: Real Examples

We all know that YouTube started replacing television long ago.

It's more convenient, because you can watch videos at any time rather than strictly according to the TV schedule.

It's more varied — on YouTube there are videos about raising ostriches at home, makeup trends, repairing a truck in a garage, and the problems of global warming.

Everyone finds something here.

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All these advantages became the reason for the rapid growth of this platform's popularity.

If you're still not sure that you urgently need to bring your business to YouTube, let me offer you an infographic:

Since YouTube is a visual social network, the image here is no less important than on Instagram.

But in the context of this social network we'll talk not so much about the image inside the video as about the channel's design.

Undoubtedly the image in a video is also important, but mostly videos get millions of views thanks to interesting and useful information or the author's personal brand, not because of the beautiful interior of the blogger's apartment where they film.

Creating a channel on YouTube

If you don't have a YouTube channel yet, this chapter is for you.

I'll explain how to quickly and easily create your video blog, and I'll go through the channel's structure.

Let's understand the main aspects of this platform.

Anyone who has a mailbox on gmail.com can create a channel on YouTube.

Let's move on to creating a channel:

1. We go to youtube.com and log in through email.

We're automatically shown popular videos on potentially interesting topics: politics, cartoons, music, recipes, and more.

2. We click on the avatar -> "Create channel".

3. We choose a channel name — this can be the name chosen at registration or any other name.

For greater clarity I selected the "Use a custom name" option. Then I entered the channel name and clicked "Select".

If your channel's name duplicates your site's name, I recommend checking the quality of the title using our free tool "Title Quality Calculator". It will help optimize your site's title and make it more interesting for people and more popular in search results.

4. We move on to designing the channel.

At this stage the interface may switch to English.

Let's go through each block in more detail so you don't get confused.

First, we're offered to add a channel photo (this isn't the banner that we'll discuss later, but a small avatar that users won't be able to enlarge and view).

A little lower ("Tell viewers about your channel") — the channel description.

I recommend filling out this point right away, because not all visitors to your channel will want to watch a 5-minute video, but reading a brief description in 10 seconds is within everyone's reach.

If you interest them with the description, you can be sure your video will be opened.

"Add links to your sites" — links to social networks.

This is very convenient and lets you draw people from YouTube to other social networks, thereby gaining free subscribers.

After filling out these points, we click "Save and continue" or, if you want to add information later, click "Set up later".

5. Congratulations, you've just created your YouTube channel.

When the channel is created, you can and should add your videos and bring the channel's design to perfection.

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What a YouTube banner is and why you need it

We created the channel, added the photo.

So what is the "YouTube banner" I mentioned at the very beginning?

And is it even needed?

I'll tell you now.

When you start adding videos to YouTube, your channel will transform a bit.

For clarity I switched to my account, which already has videos, page design, and subscriptions-subscribers.

And, as you can see in the photo, we've smoothly approached the question of the channel's "banner". What is it?

It's the so-called "cover" that's located above the avatar and channel name.

Its main function is to tell everyone who visits your blog for the first time about it.

The banner size is 1546*423 pixels — this is the part that's displayed on any device: on a mobile phone, a tablet, and a computer.

That is, you need to put the emphasis on exactly this space — add text and the main part of the image.

For a tablet the resolution is a little more elongated — 1548*423 pixels, and on the desktop version of the site — 2560*423 pixels.

How to upload a cover to YouTube?

1. We go to the "My channel" tab.

2. "Customize channel" — this button exists both for those who previously added a channel cover and for newly created channels.

3. We click the pencil in the cover area -> "Edit channel art".

4. Then we choose the image source — uploading from a computer, choosing a photo from "Google Photos", or a photo from YouTube's free gallery.

5. When you choose an image, a preview of the cover on different devices will appear right away. YouTube offers to crop the image so the channel looks correct on a computer, a tablet, and a phone.

6. When you've chosen an image and cropped it (if that was needed), click "Select" and enjoy your beautiful new cover for your YouTube channel.

Now let's figure out what you can and should add to your profile banner:

• don't overload the already small space — only clear text and brief information;
• take the choice of the main color seriously, since it's exactly what people will associate with the blog and with you;
• don't write too much text, choose 2-3 concise phrases that will immediately introduce visitors to your channel; for example, the release schedule of new videos, keywords: "Cooking. Recipes. Cook in 30 minutes";
• pick a background image (if it's appropriate or if you've completely given up on text in the banner) that's close to your topic. If the channel is about cars, you shouldn't add a photo of nature to the cover, however beautiful it is.

When choosing the cover color, a small cheat sheet on color psychology will come in handy.

What each color is associated with:

• White — simplicity, purity

A universal color that suits the cover of any educational channel.

Completely unsuitable for vlogs — so-called blogs about life with a minimum of studio filming and editing.

• Red — passion, life, aggression, vivid emotions

Great for channels about love or those touching on socially important topics: domestic violence, female slavery, and so on.

Not suitable for channels with a neutral style of presenting information.

• Yellow — positivity, light, warmth, happiness

Suitable for a channel about life hacks, children, travel, for everyone who shows positive emotions.

• Light blue — calm, tenderness, relaxation

An excellent choice for bloggers who talk about their life and shoot videos in a "talking head" style (without changing locations); suitable for educational channels (for example, online English lessons).

• Purple — mysticism, the supernatural, the unusual

Suitable for channels about esoterics, psychology, mysticism.

Also a good choice for shops with bright logos, since thanks to the color contrast people will quickly remember your channel specifically.

• Orange — celebration, love of life

A universal color, suitable for everything except channels with world and political news (because they usually present not the most pleasant things, and you need, on the contrary, to put visitors at ease rather than provoke a vivid display of emotions).

• Blue — safety, apathy, calm

Often chosen as covers for their channels by people who talk about what's happening in the world of politics, reason about possible scenarios in world markets and about the future of humanity in general.

Suitable for everyone who doesn't want to drive viewers to a turbulent expression of emotions but, on the contrary, seeks to calm them a little.

• Pink — being in love, childhood, carefreeness

A girly color — makeup, clothes, style tips, manicures, and the entire beauty industry.

Suitable for channels with children's clothing and toys (for example, a shop that wants to enter a new platform and get clients not only through the site but also through YouTube).

• Green — harmony, nature, freshness, youth

Everything related to nature, growth, and naturalness, from channels about fishing to creating natural cosmetics.

Despite the fact that many people forgo following the canons of color psychology, they really do work.

If you've decided to go against the rules and make your channel's cover bright and flashy, then the content presented in the blog should be no less provocative and emotion-evoking.

Recommended reading:

1. Keywords for a YouTube Channel: Selecting and Optimizing Tags
2. Building a Successful YouTube Blog in 5 Steps: No Experience or Budget

Examples and anti-examples of YouTube banners

You can talk endlessly about the secrets of creating the perfect YouTube channel banner, but it's much more effective to visually examine successful and failed covers of well-known channels and understand what suits you specifically.

We've gone through the main recommendations for designing a banner on YouTube, and now I suggest looking at popular video blogs and analyzing what's good and what's bad about their banners.

1. Channel "Visiting Gordon"

What is the channel about? Dmitry Gordon is one of Ukraine's most popular interviewers. He talks with celebrities from various fields and asks them tricky questions.

The channel's cover is absolutely vague. No information, just a photo of Dmitry and the name duplicated.

The colors are chosen correctly: a gradient from light to dark, everything in calm tones, question marks — an accent on new information.

But you have to admit, if the banner said "Tricky questions. Interviews. Politics. Business" and on the other side — "New video every Monday", then for users who aren't familiar with Dmitry's work everything would become much clearer.

The banner also contains links to social networks.

2. Channel "Anastacia Kay"

What is the channel about? Anastasia is a girl who has lived in Europe all her life.

She has a multifaceted channel, ranging from blogs about studying at Harvard, useful recipes, and daily home workouts to writing a dissertation in neuropsychology and filling out a planner using the popular "bullet journal" system.

The channel's cover is much better than in the first case. We see the video release schedule.

The channel name and the slogan "Become a better version of yourself" are also placed here.

Even without the video titles (I deliberately didn't add them to the screenshot in order to evaluate the covers impartially) we understand that it will be about self-development.

The small details are also varied and associative: almonds and raspberries — we guess there will be information about proper nutrition; paper clips and a notebook — probably it'll be about time management.

So we can conclude that the cover is quite informative.

3. Channel "MixStyleCapuccino"

What is the channel about? This video blog is dedicated to beauty, fashion, and style.

A girl named Yulia talks about budget cosmetic products, quick manicure options, and her routine.

There were topics about pregnancy and planning to have a child.

The channel's cover is bright and unusual. We see keywords that fully answer our question "What is the blog about?".

In the center of the cover is an image of Yulia herself with her cat. This is interesting and memorable.

The cover has no information about the release schedule of new videos, but after scrolling through the page I saw that the videos come out at varying intervals: once every 2 weeks, once every 2 months, so there isn't really a schedule as such.

4. Channel "PEOPLETALK TV"

What is the channel about? The channel belongs to a portal about fashion, show-business news, and celebrities.

Indeed, the video blog has all the same things — interviews, society-news episodes, and entertainment programs with celebrities.

The channel's cover is very concise. Here we see neither a video release schedule, nor keywords, nor people — only the logo.

We can assume that the main focus was on people who already read the site and simply don't need explanations about what the videos will be about.

How to create a YouTube banner for free and easily

We've figured out what a YouTube "banner" is and why you need it.

What's better to add and what to avoid — too.

Now I'll tell you about resources where you can easily and freely create a banner for a YouTube channel on your own.

Of course, the leader in creating images always was and will be Adobe Photoshop.

But this method is far from the fastest and simplest, and the official version of the program isn't free.

I want to show you three quick and clear ways to create a cover for YouTube.

1. Find a ready-made cover in a search engine

If you're at the very start of your path as a video blogger and most of your strength and energy goes into creating content, while you don't yet want to bother with the cover, you can simply find a ready-made banner in Google.

I'll say right away — the selection isn't very large, but if you want the space not to stay empty and you need a cover for the time being until a better option appears, this is the optimal choice.

Important! Don't forget to specify that you're looking only for images licensed for use, otherwise you risk infringing copyright.

2. The "Canva" service

This resource has a paid and a free version.

Of course, the paid one has more extensive functionality, but for creating a cover for a YouTube channel the free one is quite enough.

And if you're unfamiliar with this resource, I highly recommend it.

In my practice I often use it for creating images for social networks and various posters, invitations, and cards.

1. First you need to register. You can do it through a Google or Facebook account.
2. After completing registration you'll land on the main page, where you'll be offered to create an image for a specific social network (and you don't even need to know the exact size in pixels, Canva knows it all itself).

3. In the template search we start typing "you" and a menu with suggestions appears before us. We choose "YouTube channel art" — here it's important not to confuse it with "YouTube cover", because on this site "cover" means a short 3-second video that we'll see if we hover the cursor over a clip on YouTube without opening it.

4. And then a menu will open with many ready-made templates in which you can change images, text, fonts, and more. You choose the one you like and click on it.

5. You'll move directly to the working page.

6. On the left are banner templates by category:

• YouTube channel art on the theme of music.
• YouTube channel art on the theme of beauty.
• YouTube channel art (travel).
• YouTube channel art on the theme of makeup.

7. Working with the resource is very simple: you click on the block you want to change and make the cover of your dreams.
8. After finishing editing, you click "Download" and export the created cover.

3. The "Crello" service

1. On this service you also need to register. Registration takes literally 2 clicks. You need to choose a registration method: through a Facebook or Google account.
2. Visually the site is very similar to Canva.

3. In the search we type "youtube" and choose "YouTube channel art".

4. Unfortunately, on this service most templates are paid, but there are also a few free ones that you can use.

5. Crello also divides layouts by channel category, which makes life much easier:

• business channels and video blogs about finance;
• travelers' blogs;
• children's;
• entertainment;
• recipes and cooking;
• about health;
• about handmade and crafts;
• fashion, trends, makeup;
• about renovation, construction, architecture;
• about education, science, knowledge;
• about pets (domestic and not so domestic);
• covering public events and holidays;
• about faith and religions;
• technology, sports.

6. After finishing editing, we save the cover.

As you can see, creating a cover easily and quickly is possible in several ways at once.

I recommend setting aside time and getting acquainted with both resources, since there are many cover templates there and they're all varied.

Conclusions

Let's sum up everything written above — if you're not on YouTube yet, you need to fix this urgently, because every day more and more people prefer shows and blogs on YouTube to ordinary television.

To avoid going unnoticed among hundreds of thousands of channels, you need to create a catchy, bright, interesting, and at the same time informative cover for your YouTube channel.

Even if you're not a professional designer and are on shaky terms with Photoshop, you shouldn't despair, because there are cool free services with which you can create an awesome banner for your video blog.