16 outstanding YouTube banner ideas.

Explore a selection of handpicked YouTube banner designs to get inspiration for building your very own.

Design with your idea

1. Feature your brand tagline or slogan.

Your YouTube banner is an excellent digital real estate piece to showcase what you think is important about your channel. Broadcast your brand’s tagline or slogan across your banner in an eye-catching way. Now that you know about font pairing, text styles and text effects, use these design elements to create magic with your tagline.

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color AND colorful AND education AND multicolored AND theory AND thumbnail AND youtube
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2. Use your banner space for updates.

It is likely that viewers are regularly coming to your page to find your latest video upload. So why not take advantage of the traffic? Use your banner as a space to provide updates or add a seasonal touch to your channel. Going off-line? Add that to your banner along with a return date, so viewers know when you’ll be back. Is it your channel’s birthday? Add a cake and candles to your banner for the week to make it celebratory. In this example, we see that Matte’s travel channel is focused on national parks.

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national-park AND nature AND silhouette AND sunset AND travel AND tree AND you tube
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3. Layer in shapes and colours to make a statement.

All the tools you need to make an impressive design are already right there at your fingertips. Here, we see how shapes, colour and placement can create something dynamic. The wiggly lines, scaled at a large size and used repetitively, communicate the ocean waves. Colour, font style and placement were all it took to make the line of copy into an interesting, graphic shape. The surfer image packs a ton of action into this design. As you craft your banner, think outside the box and try something unconventional.

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brown AND cover AND feed AND fiji AND lifestyle AND surfing AND travel AND youtube
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4. Feature a call to action.

Text certainly isn’t necessary on a YouTube banner, but it can be nice to add text to include information your viewers won’t find elsewhere on your channel. Here, Hobbyland is describing what their channel is about and encouraging viewers to subscribe. If you feature a call to action, keep the rest of your design simple in comparison.

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documentary AND fishing AND fishing-rod AND hand AND lake AND lakeshore
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5. Explore with text styles.

The word Insomnia here has been translated into graphic art simply by making slight adjustments. Spacing out the letters and using all-caps creates an ominous and expansive sentiment that resonates with the background’s space image. How can you style your text to fit your design? Perhaps by spacing out, stacking or colour-coding your letters? Maybe by playing with placement or negative space? How about size, repetition or angles? These are all ways to add more meaning to your words and make an impressive design.

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cover AND fantasy AND insomnia AND playlist AND sky
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6. Use type characters as shapes.

Here we see how brackets can be used to create a header text box. Enlarge your letters to show off their shapes and curves. Create boxes, frames, patterns or negative space with them. We also love this design to think outside the box, literally and stretch the brackets and type to overlay on both the image and the yellow square.

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bath AND beauty AND citrus AND guide AND lemon AND slice AND tip
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7. Learn to pair fonts perfectly.

When it comes to font pairings, a good rule to remember is opposites attract. If you want to have a bold, creative headline like Hong Kong, choose a secondary font that is the opposite - in this case, a neutral san serif font. Consider a primary font that resonates with your artwork. Here, the main font echoes the edgy, adventurous vibe we see in the photo. The secondary font, however, is there to communicate a message. So, if you choose a wild, handwritten primary font, pair it with a neutral serif or sans serif font. If you have a headline that’s a professional, san serif font, go for a secondary serif font for legibility.

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cloud AND hong kong AND pink AND sea AND silhouetteAND travel
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8. Create outstanding text effects.

Take your copy to the next level with special text effects. Text effects are a great way to add impact to your design. With Adobe Express, you can choose Generate Text Effect such as cutout, as seen in the example below, outline, shadow or a combination of these effects. Generate Text effect is a dynamic tool for adding dimension to your YouTube banner.

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colorful AND effect AND lifestyle AND photo AND pink AND sentence AND text AND tutorial AND youtube
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9. Play with powerful imagery.

This photo of a live concert is, without doubt, stimulating and compelling. Upon the first impression, a viewer already has a pretty good idea of what this channel is about. The title and subtitle fill in any blanks. Photos can often make a viewer feel much more than text can, so use them to your advantage. Upload photos to Adobe Express from your computer, phone, social channels or Creative Cloud or browse through our stock photo selection for gorgeous images that you can place right into your designs.

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concert AND crowd AND light AND music AND party AND people AND pop AND stage AND thumbnail
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10. Select images to match your channel.

If you have a specific brand or theme for your channel, curate your banner’s imagery to match. You can go full screen with your photos or drop them in frames or different layout options. You can even feature multiple images by using photo collages.

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beauty channel AND beauty thumbnail AND beauty tips AND beauty vlog AND gray AND natural beauty AND vlogger
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11. Create imagery with icons.

Build a beautiful graphic banner with icons alone. Search through our wide selection of icons to find the perfect fit for your banner. Get creative with your icons by playing around with the sizing. Scale-up an icon to take up the whole background or shrink them down to create a cohesive design. Play with colour and placement as well to make something unique.

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Banner-web
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advertisement AND business AND carnival AND grey AND sale
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12. Colour your banner with attention-grabbing hues.

Bright colours are one way to grab your viewer’s attention. You can also use contrasting colours, such as complementary colours on the colour wheel or a bright text against a dark background, or vice versa. Think about the intent behind your colours. This is a great example of colour theory because the green shade communicates the green intention behind the channel. Pink and green have been popular colour swatches recently, so given the ubiquity of these colours, they may resonate with your viewer as something familiar. Colour can communicate so much without saying anything at all.

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Youtube-banner
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banner template AND blue AND bright AND fashion tips AND fashion videos AND fresh AND green AND pink
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13. Craft collages using text, photos and imagery.

Collaging is a great tool for featuring lots of content in a single design. This particular layout is an excellent example as there’s consistency between all the different sections - each is a single subject on bright colour background. Use other layout options to turn your canvas into a grid and create a cohesive design by mixing and matching photo and text boxes.

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channel-art AND collage AND colorful AND guitar AND headhpones AND multicolored AND playlist
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14. Explore with panels and frames.

There are many ways to divide up the space in your design, such as collaging or using different layouts. Here, we see the shoe graphic expand through 3 different frames. An effect like this can be done by applying semi-transparent panels with different colours over an image and using white lines to indicate a break or frame in the design. Dimension is added with lines and text overlaying across the frame borders. This banner feels jam-packed with energy and action.

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clothes AND fashion AND field AND grid AND guide AND photography
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15. Use layers to transform your design.

Drop-in an image to your banner design. Add a filter. Place a second image on top and adjust the transparency so you can see the photo underneath. Add a shaped block, then overlay text on top. Now you’ve made a very dimensional banner design. Layering is a design element that creates depth and transforms something ordinary into something extraordinary. Let go of preconceived notions and experiment a little with layering different pieces to create something entirely new.

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blend AND brown AND old fashioned AND photographingAND warm
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16. Design within the parameters.

YouTube banners are cropped differently depending on the device you view them on. Generally, the safe area is the banner’s middle rectangle, which is how it is presented on mobile and desktop. You want to make that your key focus and maintain a design that can be enjoyed on full screen, like on a TV. For this design, a full view shows the classic arcade game feel from the background texture.

When we crop it down to the safe area, we see the channel name and info in full and the fun icons used to design that spacey feel. Designing within the parameters will allow you to have an impressive banner when viewing on any device.

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avatar AND cover AND cute AND emoji AND gadget AND glow AND grid
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How to make a YouTube banner with Adobe Express.

Start with inspiration.
We hook you up with thousands of professionally designed templates, so you’re never starting from a blank canvas. Search by platform, task, aesthetic, mood or colour to have fresh inspiration at your fingertips. Once you find a graphic to start from, tap or click to open the document in the editor.
Remix to make it your own.
There are lots of ways to personalise the templates. Change up the copy and font. Sub out the imagery with your snapshots or short video clips. Or browse from thousands of free images right in Adobe Express. Spend as little or as much time as you want to make the graphic your own. With a premium plan, you can even auto-apply your brand logo, colours and fonts, so you’re always #onbrand.
Amp up the flair.
It’s easy to add extra flair and personality to your projects with our exclusive design assets. For example, apply a text animation for short-form graphic videos in one tap. We’ve taken care of all the boring technical stuff so you can focus on your message and style.
Resize to make your content go further.
Gone are the days of having to memorise image dimensions for every single platform. Once you’ve landed on a design you like, you can easily modify it for any social network by using our handy resize feature. Duplicate the project, hit resize, select the platform you want to adapt it for, and we take care of the rest.
Save and share your customised YouTube banner.
Once your design is complete, hit that publish button and share it with others. Adobe Express saves your creations, so you can always revisit your project if you need to update it in the future.