These days most people are starting with content creation, on YouTube, Instagram, and others. While creating content, one thing that always comes at the back of our mind is to make a clickable thumbnail. You don’t need expensive software or computers to design stunning thumbnails for your YouTube video. Instead, you can do it on your mobile with a single app called Canva. Canva is a web-based design studio that allows you to design all kinds of graphics including thumbnails. So let’s create thumbnail using Canva.
In this article, we will walk you through how to create thumbnail using Canva but if you want to know more about it then these links might help you.
Full tutorial on how to use Canva , 15 Canva design tips and tricks
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Why Canva?
Canva is an amazing tool with lots of great features but it is also easy to use even for beginners. If you’ve been looking for a way to design thumbnails for your YouTube videos without having to spend a lot on a complicated design program, head over to Canva.com or you can download the app from here.
Design thumbnail using Canva templates
First thing you might need before getting into Canva is to have pictures that you wanna edit. Save them into a folder, that might make your work easy.
Once you’ve signed up or logged in, you’ll see a page like this. Go to Social Media and then to YouTube thumbnail.
You can also search for YouTube thumbnail in the search bar for the selection of pre-decided templates. You might see something here that works perfectly for your thumbnail and if so all you need to do is to switch out a few images and text.
Design thumbnail on Canva from scratch
If you plan to design your thumbnail from scratch then let’s move on.
Click on the “+” which is at the top left corner of the page to open a plain canvas from your thumbnail. A page like this will appear. Let us quickly go through the icons that you can see on the extreme left side of the page.
There are Templates that you can load into your canvas. Uploads where you can upload your images or graphics. Photos where you’ve access to a library of royalty-free images. Elements where you can find free icons and shapes. The Text provides you with multiple fonts and Backgrounds which gives you options for solid colors, pictures, patterns, and images that you need for your background. Click on the three dots below if you can’t find few icons to use.
Since we’re on Background let’s select a background image for our canvas. Choose a background for your image. Keep in mind while choosing color or image that you want to be able to read text on them easily. To add a background click on the image and it will automatically fill up your canvas.
You can either select solid images from Background or can go to Photos to search for a specific type of image or you can browse through the categories below the search ar. Once you find the image, click on it and it will automatically be added to your canvas. To fill your canvas with a photo, click and drag the corners of the photo and adjust it as per your requirement.
If you’ve any images or graphics that you want to upload, go to the Uploads tab and click on “Upload an image or video” or “Upload media”. Here you can drag and drop images from your file browser. Once your image is finished uploading, click on it and it will be added to your canvas. You can reposition the image by clicking on the image and dragging it to your desired position.
To add graphic elements to your thumbnail, click on the elements tab. You can browse for a specific shape or icon and add it to your canvas. And if you want to add text then click on the Text tab, you’ll see options for heading, subheading, and smaller texts. You can also see a wide selection of fonts and styles.
Save your thumbnail
After you’ve created the thumbnail, what’s important is to save your thumbnail. To do so click on the Download button at the top right corner of your screen. Choose which file type you want your pictures to be in.
And that’s it. Now you’ve got a beautiful thumbnail for your YouTube video that is sure to get your video the clicks it deserves.
So I hope this helped you to create thumbnail using Canva. If you’ve any more questions regarding this then feel free to ask us down below. And if you want to learn more about thumbnail-making apps then click here.