What is a YouTube Banner?

Your banners should be where your audience is, and video is here to stay – YouTube is the biggest video platform in the world, and the most visited. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to try to have a presence there. Many companies look after their Instagram and Facebook social profiles but ignore the potential that YouTube offers.

If you are considering a change in your YouTube strategy, we can help you to make your profile look fantastic. At Freepik, we offer specific templates for different YouTube banners that you can use to find inspiration or adapt to your brand. If you prefer, you can edit them online in Freepik Designer.

What is a Youtube Banner?

Youtube banner, also known as a channel art, is the large and visually impactful image that stretches across the top of your channel’s homepage. It’s like the cover of a book; it sets the tone and makes the first impression. But it’s not just about aesthetics; a YouTube banner serves multiple functions.

How to make a youtube banner?

The vital thing is to include the important information that will be displayed on all devices, and avoid cutting text, images, etc. However, you should also avoid spaces outside the exclusive areas viewed on mobile devices.

A common mistake when designing your channel’s banner is to focus on that small rectangle in the middle of the canvas that will be seen on all devices and ignore everything else. While it is true that most visits are from mobile devices, YouTube is increasingly viewed on higher resolution screens, and even on smart TVs, so you should take the opportunity to make your channel look fantastic on all devices.

Other recommendations include

• Respect the gray rectangle where YouTube will place the logo and the brand’s social accounts. Avoid placing important elements in that box so that they are not stepped on by this YouTube functionality.
• Use only high-quality images. Try to adapt to the resolutions suggested by YouTube and not only to the proportions, in order to prevent the image from losing quality when adapted to different devices.
• Go for minimalist, orderly, and chromatically harmonious designs, since on many occasions you will only see a strip a few centimeters wide. Make sure that the presence of the logo stands out.
• Bear in mind that on the YouTube channel, the banner will coexist with the profile image of the channel, so you’ll need to make sure that both elements work together as well as separately.

Youtube Banner Dimensions

The social network itself suggests 2560×1440 pixels as the ideal size for the YouTube header banner. But other considerations must also be taken into account, such as the minimum dimensions, which will be 2048×1152; the minimum safe area for text and logos: 1546×423 pixels; and the maximum file size: 6 MB.

• Maximum recommended YouTube banner size: 2560 x 1440 pixels (as seen on television)
• Minimum banner dimensions: 2048 x 1152 pixels (as seen on desktops)
• Designated “Safe Area” size for logos and text: 1546 x 423 pixels (as seen on mobile devices)
• Maximum channel art width: 2560 x 423 pixels (as seen on desktops)

Our final recommendation is to create a template with the different device sizes to see how your design works on each of the platforms and visualize the harmony between them.

YouTube Channel Art Format & File Size

• Accepted file formats: JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF (not animated)
• File size: up to 6MB

As you can see, the world of banners, in particular, is vast, and if we scale up to digital advertising in general, the breadth of this world is magnified to the nth degree. It takes a lot of time and practice to understand all the details related to the different ad sizes and to create high-performing ads. What works for one company may not work for another. Here it is worth taking a trial-and-error approach and it will be very useful to maintain an attitude of patience throughout the process.

We encourage you to try different advertising media, especially the new media that are emerging, as in many cases, during their launch, they tend to show better performance, have lower costs, and give greater impact due to the novelty and users’ curiosity.

At Freepik, we can help you in your inspiration process with hundreds of YouTube banner templates designed for every platform. You can edit them and adapt them to your brand or try designing an online banner with Freepik Designer.