YouTube content creators must know how essential eye-catching thumbnails are in drawing the audience. YouTube thumbnails are like movie posters or book covers. Their goal is to attract potential viewers by generating enough excitement and curiosity to get them to view the video.
To create a successful thumbnail that leads to a high click-through rate, you don’t need to purchase expensive software or spend hours making a single image that will affect the success of your most recent upload.
Here is a guide on how to create a YouTube thumbnail on Canva. Are you ready to restart and elevate your thumbnail game and get design ideas? Let’s start!
What is Canva?
First things first: let’s understand Canva and how you can incorporate it into your workflow.
Canva is an all-inclusive visual communication tool that enables anyone, may it be a beginner or a total noob, to design graphics. You can easily make beautiful presentations, infographics, videos, t-shirts, websites, and social media posts with Canva.
The goal of Canva is to simplify the creation of visual assets without requiring any prior knowledge of graphic design.
It has a wide array of editable templates, graphics, images, and videos that can be used to create various marketing materials.
Canva Pro – Is it Worth It?
If you are wondering whether you need Canva Pro to create YouTube thumbnails on Canva, the short answer is no. You can create YouTube thumbnails using a free account. However, some elements are only available in paid versions, limiting your ability to create the design you want.
Either way, you can still create a good thumbnail with the features of the free version.
To give you an idea of whether Canva Pro is for you, here is a price comparison between Canva Pro and Canva Free:
Now, let’s delve into the differences between the two plans:
Canva Free
Although this version is entirely free, it is packed with a lot of features. Here are some of the key features of the free version:
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Over 3 million free graphics, photos, and videos
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2+ million free templates
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100+ design layouts
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5GB cloud storage
The free plan is very useful and available forever. Hence, it is a good choice for anyone who is starting a YouTube channel with little to no budget and small businesses with limited funds to hire a graphic designer.
Disadvantages of Canva Free
Although Canva Free is fully packed with features, it also has limitations.
First, it offers limited branding tools. The free Canva plan only allows you to build one brand kit. In contrast, the subscription plan will enable you to create 1,000 brand kits. These kits allow you to upload a logo, choose your brand color palettes, add your own fonts, photographs, graphics, and icons, and quickly combine them.
Second, the free plan does not have filters that display only the free design components. When you search for a design element, Canva Free displays all of the results. Hence, it might take a while to search through assets you can’t use until you find one that is free and complements your design.
Lastly, the free plan offers very limited export options. You cannot download SVGs (vector drawings), PNGs with transparent backgrounds, or print-ready CMYK files. You also cannot set a limit on the files you download or change the compression settings for your images.
Canva Pro
Now, let’s look into Canva Pro and how it differs from the free version.
Canva Pro is a paid plan that can be subscribed to monthly or annually. The monthly subscription costs $15, and the annual subscription costs $120.
In any case, a Canva Pro membership grants access to essential features, the most important of which are the following:
More Stock Videos, Images, and Graphics
Although it still offers a large selection of royalty-free pictures and graphic components, Canva Free restricts you to a more limited collection of stock photos and graphics.
In contrast, Canva Pro offers more than 130 million stock images and graphics and access to a far more extensive collection of audio and video content.
In particular, Canva Pro provides you with:
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Over 25,000 audio tracks
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Prelicenced 4K and HD video clips
Compared to the Pro version, Canva’s free edition offers fewer free videos and no audio.
Additional Templates
Although the Canva free plan offers more than 2 million professionally created templates, the Canva Pro plan offers far more (4.5+ million).
Resize and Magic Switch tool
Canva Pro’s Resize and Magic Switch tool is another tempting feature that simplifies adapting preexisting designs for various devices.
You can open an existing design and then use Canva Pro’s Magic Switch feature to reformat it automatically for various social media platforms and purposes. This saves a lot of time because you can create all of these at once.
Canva Pro also has a built-in translation tool that enables you to make several copies of your design in other languages. To translate your design, simply click the “Resize” icon at the top of the Canva interface, go to the “Magic Switch” settings, select the language you wish to use, and then click “Translate.”
This tool is perfect for making several iterations of the same design for use in several regions.
Background Removal Tool
If you have the Canva Pro plan, you can use a background removal tool to remove unnecessary backgrounds from your YouTube thumbnails. This is also essential when editing portraits for your website.
More AI-Driven Design Tools
Canva Pro has recently added 17 AI tools to the site. Some of these new capabilities, like Canva’s Magic Write writing assistance and Dream Lab text-to-image generator, are available on all plans; however, the free plan only allows you to use them a few times.
On the other hand, Canva Pro gives you access to all of Canva’s Magic Studio AI tools. Each AI tool has a sufficient monthly use cap that should meet the needs of most customers.
Customizable templates
You can only work with pre-made Canva templates when using the free version of the app. However, you can build customizable templates with Canva Pro. This means that you can make sure that all your graphics are totally on-brand using reusable templates.
Customer service
Technically, email assistance is accessible around the clock and is included in all Canva plans.
However, Canva Pro and Canva Free have very different turnaround times. If you use Canva Free, you could wait up to a week for assistance. However, with the Pro plan, you can anticipate a response to your question within 24 hours.
Users
Until recently, one of the main distinctions between the Canva Pro and Canva Free plans was that the former cost only $15 a month and featured five user accounts. Unfortunately, this is no longer true; now, both “Canva Pro” and “Canva Free” only allow one user each.
To give your team access to Canva, you can purchase the “Canva Teams” plan, which costs $10 per month per user (or $100 per year per user if you’re paying for an annual plan). Canva Teams offers numerous collaboration tools, such as admin controls, team-only links, team approvals, and team reports.
How to Create Thumbnail on Canva
Here is the step-by-step guide on making YouTube thumbnails on Canva:
1. Create an Account or Log In to Canva
The first step is to create an account on Canva.com. If you’ve never used Canva before, you can register for a 30-day free trial of Canva Pro to see if it is a good fit for your needs.
If you already have an account, you can simply log in and access it.
2. Create the Thumbnail
Once you’re in Canva, you have two options. You can choose the YouTube Thumbnail template on the homepage or search for “YouTube Thumbnail” in the search field.
You can now create your thumbnail design. To make it more interesting, you can use one image as a backdrop or add more elements.
Several pre-made designs are available, which you can use as inspiration for your own. To customize them to your brand and personality, click on any of the designs and change the fonts, colors, and photos.
You can also create your thumbnail from scratch by clicking on the different tabs, which comprise the background, text, images, and elements tabs.
Tips on How to Create a YouTube Thumbnail on Canva
When making thumbnails, here are some tips that can help you create a good one:
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Your thumbnail should contain only three to five words. Pay attention to the keywords that will make people want to click.
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Avoid Serif fonts because they are hard to see, especially on a small YouTube thumbnail.
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Make sure the text contrasts with the backdrop to ensure it is legible.
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When you hover over your thumbnail on YouTube, symbols appear on the right side of the thumbnail. To ensure they are visible, keep the text to the left.
3. Download the Thumbnail
Now that your thumbnail is ready, you can proceed to the next step. After finishing your design, click the “Download” button to save your finished thumbnail as a PNG file.
4. Upload Video to YouTube
Now that you have created a thumbnail, you can upload your video to YouTube.
To do this, click “YouTube Studio,” then “Create,” and “Upload Video.”
If you have already uploaded the video and want to change the thumbnail, click “YouTube Studio” and then “Content.”
After choosing the video you want to edit, click the pencil button. Under the “Thumbnail” section, click “Upload File,” select the finished thumbnail design, and click “Open.” Once you are satisfied with the changes, click “Save.”
The Bottomline
This is a step-by-step guide on how to create a YouTube thumbnail on Canva. Now that you know the differences between Canva Pro and Canva Free, you can make an informed decision about whether to purchase the paid version or start creating visual assets with the free version.
If you are tired of editing your YouTube videos and need help, Vidpros’s professional team of video editors is here to help. We will lift the burden of editing off your shoulders so you can focus on creating content. Book a consultation call with us today!
