Want more Views? Look more Professional

It’s as simple as that, a cool Youtube Banner for your Channel is crucial to give your channel “that” professional look. While the quality of your videos is important, having well designed Channel Art and Youtube Video Thumbnails is just as important. 

Ever heard of the term “Click Bait”? Well, that’s exactly what your Channel Banner is intended to be. A good designed Youtube Banner or Video Thumbnail is almost 100% guaranteed to have visitors flocking to your channel. You get the idea, don’t you.

Today we will design a professional looking Youtube Channel Banner inside of Photoshop. This tutorial is intended to be simple and less complex. I’ll leave a link for you to download the PSD and use it on your channel.

This is the Youtube Channel Banner we will look to create using Photoshop CC 2020.

Alright then…let’s get to work.

Step 1. Open up photoshop and make a new document (photoshop .psd file of course)

As of 2020, the size of a Youtube Banner is 2560×1440 pixels. This size is optimized for Desktops, TV’s & Mobile Devices.  That’s the size you must choose. 

Step 2. Adding a Pattern or Background

I’ve chosen to add a background of leaves. In this case i’ve used the default photoshop patterns that come with Photoshop CC 2020, if you don’t use CC20 then you could always add a background of leaves which you could find on unsplash.com, pexles.com or pixabay.com

Step 3. Adding a rectangle across the canvas

Next, we’ll add a rectangle shape horizontally across the canvas to act as a base / container for our text and photo. This section is very important because this is what your viewers on their desktop and mobile device are going to see. I have added the template with all the guides and safety margins for the devices, leaving that technical stuff aside, let’s get on with the tutorial.

Once our container (black rectangle) is in place, I’ll double click on the rectangle layer or right click on select “Blending Options”, and select “Pattern Overlay” and choose the same “trees background” as you did for the main background in Step 1,
Bring down the opacity of the pattern to around about 35% – 40 %.
Looking good!

Now we will add text to our Youtube Banner Template. You could add the photo first but, I like to start with the text first to make the design a lot fuller and give me better visual direction.

Step 4. Start Texting

Nothing fancy here, just some text to inform my viewers exactly what my channel is about.

TITLE FONT – For my title PHOTOGRAPHY, I’ve used the MONT HEAVY DEMO from dafont.com with a size of 35 PT and a TRACKING of -40. I’ve also set the font to italic and uppercase on the character dialog box.

SUB TITLE FONT – For the Sub Title, I’ve used the Montserrat Black from dafont.com with a size of 6 PT and a TRACKING of 250. You get the idea!

You can download the fonts here: 

Month Heavy Demo
Montserrat Black
Bebas Neue 

Step 5. Adding Your Photo

I’ve chosen to add a photo to the left of the text, this is subjective and you could add it anywhere you’d like as long as it’s within the safety margins so that your photo will be displayed correctly on all devices. 

Click to Download Photo

I added a circular shape where I want my photo to appear. This circular shape will serve as the “mask” or “container” for our photo. In other words, the photo we place will take the shape of the “mask” or “container”. In this case it’s a circle. 

In order for our photo to take the shape of the circle we will need to use a “clipping mask”. A clipping mask will “clip” the photo to the circle so it could the shape of the circle. 

To make the photo a clipping mask, you would need to make sure your photo sits directly above the circle shape. Right click on your photo and from the long dialog box that opens, select CREATE CLIPPING MASK

Notice how your photo has now taken the shape of the circle. That’s perfect!

So this is what we have thus far. Not too bad!

and oh! I grabbed a Youtube Subscribe button from google images and added it to the Youtube Banner Design. The options are endless, you can go crazy if you want to.

That’s it! You’ve learned how to design a good looking Youtube Banner for your Channel.

Download the PSD