Branding Assets
Branding is a great way for your audience to become familiar with your channel through visual queues. We offer branding for both your channel and the watch page. Additionally, other tools like custom thumbnails can be used for branding. This document will first explain the different branding assets and then, will walk you through how to set them up.
Channel Branding Assets: Below is a list of all the branding assets you have available. The image below highlights where these assets appear on your channel with the numbers corresponding to the asset.
- Channel Image Map
- Channel Icon
- Channel Background
- Custom Thumbnail
Setting-Up Your Branding Assets
You will need some time to set-up your branding assets, since this step may take awhile to get your files to spec and adjusted to your channels design. However, the time is definitely worth it. Channels with clean and consistent branding have a lasting impression on users.
Branding Specs: Next, let’s upload your branding assets and set-up your branding. First, you’ll need to know the specs, so that you can prepare your files for upload. The table below outlines specs for your branding assets.
| Asset | Specs | Suggested File Size |
|---|---|---|
| Channel Icon | 800px wide, 800px tall | 1MB |
| Background | 1500px wide, 2000px tall | 1MB |
| Banner Space / Image Map | 970px wide, 0-150px tall | n/a |
| Custom Thumbnail | 640px wide, 70px tall | 2MB |
Channel Branding Set-Up: To get started, click “settings” from your channel page (make sure you’re logged into your YouTube Account). Clicking settings will bring you to the editing menu and from here we can set-up your channel.
Add section that has the steps for uploading a branding image and Channel Icon. Steps are:
- Go to “My Channel”
- Click the tab “Info and Appearances”
- Below “Channel Icon” and “Background Image” Click Upload button
- You’ll be prompted to choose a file saved to computer (please reference specs above)
The channels editing interface is now open. From the “Appearance” tab, you can add your channel Channel Icon, background image and channel banner image map. The two images below highlight which editing settings, control your channel branding.
If you want the banner to be clickable, you can specify an image map with links that point either to different areas of your YouTube channel or to external sites. The clickable banner area is 970 pixels wide and can be up to 150 pixels high. The top of the banner area is 10 pixels below the top of the page, and the channel page content will appear 10 pixels below the bottom of the banner area. If you are specifying image map code, the top left corner of your image map (0 point) will begin 10 pixels from the top and 485px to the left of the horizontal center of your background image
If you would like your channel banner to be clickable, enter your image map code in the designated field in the Appearance tab. Your image map code only needs to include the
tags for the image map, though you can also wrap the tags in aCustom Thumbnail Branding Set-Up
For each of the videos you upload to YT, you can set-up a custom video thumbnail either during the video upload process or afterwards in your Video Manager. We recommend uploading custom thumbnails at a minimum width of 640 pixels. You should upload the image at the largest possible 16:9 resolution while remaining under the 2MB limit.
To set-up from the upload page, wait until the video processing is somewhat complete and you’ll see suggested thumbnails appear and the “Custom thumbnail” button appear. Click this button, add your image and remember to click “Save".
To set-up from the video manager page, locate a video and click the Edit Video button, then click the Custom Thumbnail button. Once the thumbnail is uploaded, don't forget to click the "Save Changes" button.
Best Practices & Case Studies of Branding Assets
You’ve finished setting-up your branding for your channel - congratulations! As you grow your channel on YouTube, you’ll want to optimize your branding. Below, we’ve compiled tips, tricks and examples of other non-profits who are using branding in unique and interesting ways.
The Uncultured Project - there’s a lot about the branding here that the uncultured project is doing right. I love how the background image and the custom thumbnails play nicely off each other, both showing faces, but because the background images are black and gray, the color thumbnails pop off the page. The Channel Icon they’ve chosen for their channel is great. It’s immediately recognizable, so users will recognize the brand whether it is in a search result, the homepage or another spot on the site.
Lazarex Cancer Foundation - great example of a crisp and clean background branding image. The name and logo of the foundation are upfront, but the video is still the main focus of the page, bringing the viewers eye to the middle of the channel.
