Like a book cover, YouTube thumbnails have the power to influence whether audiences will want to engage with your content. Therefore, ensuring the effectiveness of your YouTube thumbnail is not only recommended, but necessary if you’re looking to increase your viewership rates.
Luckily, a lot of free tools online can help with just that. With the help of some great graphic design software, even users without experience in designing visual content can come up with some professional-looking and enticing YouTube thumbnails.
In this article, we’ll go over some of our top picks for online tools that can help you design an effective and visually appealing YouTube thumbnail—no additional help required!
How Do You Make an Effective YouTube Thumbnail?
Before anything else, it’s essential to understand what makes a YouTube thumbnail effective. A lot of the free design tools online offer pre-made thumbnail templates, but it’s always a plus to go the extra mile and personalize your thumbnails effectively. Below are some key tips:
-
Incorporate Your Brand Identity
Whether you’re a business, organization, or individual who simply enjoys uploading YouTube videos, you’re bound to have some type of brand identity. When making your thumbnails, it helps to consider the color schemes or fonts most associated with your brand so as to help your videos be more recognizable.
-
Stay Consistent
While sticking to the same branding is not a rule for making YouTube thumbnails, following a consistent design can help add cohesion to your videos, which can increase memorability among your audience.
-
Ensure Readable Text
Although you might already have a significant following on your YouTube channel, it also helps to entice new audiences to engage with your videos. By adding readable text, audiences will be more likely to understand the subject of your video, even if they haven’t read the title.
The Best Online Software for Designing a YouTube Thumbnail: A Quick Breakdown
In case you’re in a rush, we’ve got you covered. Here are our top tools for making YouTube thumbnails at a glance:
|
Canva |
Adobe Express |
VistaCreate |
PosterMyWall |
|
|
Pricing (per month) |
✅Pro ($15) ✅Teams ($10/per user) |
✅Premium ($9.99) ✅Teams ($7.99/per user) |
✅Pro ($13) |
✅Premium ($9.95) ✅Premium Plus ($29.95) |
|
Standout feature |
✅Text customization |
✅Access to Adobe Stock library |
✅Upload your own fonts |
✅User-friendly drag-and-drop editor and 30,000+ free YouTube thumbnail templates |
|
Best for |
YouTube thumbnails that emphasize text |
YouTube thumbnails that feature varied design elements |
Simple, straightforward YouTube thumbnails |
All-around use, suitable for most YouTube thumbnail designs |
What Are the Top Tools for Designing a YouTube Thumbnail?
For a more comprehensive look at our top choices, we’ve rounded up each option, its standout features, and why we recommend it.
-
Canva
What is it?
Canva is an online editing software popular for its various free design types and user-friendly drag-and-drop editor. While it’s not the most advanced graphic design tool on the market, Canva offers a simple interface where users can easily create thumbnails either from templates or from scratch.
Why it’s great
While some may find Canva’s free version to be somewhat limiting, it can serve as a good entry point for those looking to create simple thumbnails. Particularly, Canva stands out for its various text customization options, which can be a useful tool for those looking to feature a lot of text on their YouTube thumbnails.
Top Features
-
Team collaboration
For those looking to collaborate on designing thumbnails, Canva offers an easy means for different users to work simultaneously on one design.
-
Basic video editing
In case you’re looking to make some minor edits on your YouTube videos, Canva features a built-in video editing tool for simple cuts and trimming.
-
Basic photo editing
Aside from its drag-and-drop editor, Canva also features tools for basic photo editing where users can adjust factors like brightness, saturation, and even add filters.
-
Adobe Express
What is it?
Part of the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, Adobe Express is a simple drag-and-drop graphic design tool that allows users to create basic designs such as YouTube thumbnails.
Why it’s great
Similar to Canva’s interface, Adobe Express features a drag-and-drop style layout tool, which makes it easy for users to customize designs. With Adobe Express, however, users can get access to a more extensive list of royalty-free design elements that come with the Adobe Stock library.
Top Features
-
Large font library
When compared with other platforms, Adobe Express generally features a larger font library, which can be a plus for some users interested in accessing original Adobe fonts.
-
Integration with Adobe apps
For those looking to further edit designs using the features available on other Adobe apps like Photoshop, Express makes it easy for users to directly transfer designs.
-
Adobe AI
While most design tools already feature some type of built-in AI software, Adobe Express allows users to generate designs specifically using Adobe AI tools.
-
VistaCreate
What is it?
VistaCreate is another online design tool where users can create simple visual content from social media graphics to YouTube thumbnails.
Why it’s great
VistaCreate mainly stands out for its simplicity in terms of interface and overall features. While users can get almost the same features with other design platforms on VistaCreate, it’s generally a simpler tool minus the complicated features which new users may find confusing.
Top Features
-
Sticker maker
For users looking to create stickers using personal photos, VistaCreate offers a simple tool, along with other sticker designs for additional customization.
-
Export options
While exporting in high definition quality is only available on the paid tier, VistaCreate still offers a variety of export options, including PDFs, PNGs, and GIFs.
-
PosterMyWall
What is it?
PosterMyWall is a comprehensive and beginner-friendly online editing software suitable for most users, even those without any background in graphic design.
Why it’s great
For those looking for an accessible and affordable online editing tool, PosterMyWall is our top pick. Aside from its extensive list of free-to-use YouTube channel templates, the app also features a variety of useful tools that can make content generation a lot more efficient.
Top Features
-
30,000+ thumbnail templates
With thousands of free-to-use and customizable YouTube thumbnail templates, users can have an easier time coming up with unique and effective thumbnails for every type of video.
-
AI toolkit
Featuring an AI image generator and an AI writer among many other tools, PosterMyWall offers a handful of useful features for an easier time coming up with thumbnails.
-
Video/audio editor and recorder
For those looking for a simpler tool to edit and record videos, PosterMyWall also offers a readily accessible video and audio editor so users can perform basic edits on their content all in one convenient place.
What is the Best Design Software for Creating a YouTube Thumbnail?
While your individual needs will vary, we do have a general recommendation for the best design software on the market. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to get more creative with your YouTube thumbnail templates, PosterMyWall remains a great option to consider due to its versatile yet user-friendly features.
With PosterMyWall, you can easily create click-worthy and creative YouTube channels that fit your brand and style. Not only that, but PosterMyWall can also help out with a ton of other marketing or management needs that can help take your channel, social media page, or business to new heights.
Enhance Your YouTube Thumbnails Today
YouTube thumbnails serve as the main entry point to entice audiences to click on your video. While designs and styles will vary, a free graphic design tool can help you generate faster and more creative outputs.
Set to improve your creative skills? Check out our top recommended YouTube thumbnail editors today and start increasing your YouTube click rates with ease!
