YouTube
YouTube
Thumbnails and channel art for the Seeds of Renaissance YouTube channel. Part of the SoR design system; all examples by kind in Examples.
With your agent: a podcast episode's thumbnail is its cover: paste the episode cover prompt. For any other video, paste the prompt for anything else, asking for "a YouTube thumbnail for [the video]": the agent follows the rules below.
See them: thumbnails and podcast covers · channel art.
Scope: this page covers what is specific to YouTube: video thumbnails (feed sizes, the duration badge), channel art, lower thirds. General 16:9 announcements and posters for any channel live in Social; podcast show art in Podcast.
Kinds
| Kind | What it is | Make it from |
|---|---|---|
| Landscape poster | Announces a gathering or event: date, title, photograph. Also works as an event banner on other platforms. | The gathering template |
| Video cover | Generic videos (talks, essays, explainers), including a quote-card variant. | The talk and manifesto templates |
| Podcast episode cover | The guest, their name, the episode's hook, the logo with PODCAST, on the swallows-and-fingerprints ground. | Podcast and the podcast kit |
| Channel art | Banner with mobile crop, avatar, watermark, lower third. | examples/youtube/channel.html |
A vertical Shorts cover, if needed, is 1080 × 1920 (see Social).
Specs
| Asset | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Thumbnail | 1280 × 720 (16:9), JPG or PNG, under 2 MB | YouTube's duration badge covers the bottom-right corner; keep titles and faces out of it |
| Thumbnail in the feed | ~360px wide (desktop home), ~168px (desktop sidebar, "up next"), full width on mobile | Design for the 168px case: the title must still read |
| Channel banner | 2560 × 1440 upload; safe area 1546 × 423 centred | Desktops show a 2048 × 338 strip, phones a 1235 × 338 crop |
| Avatar | 800 × 800, shown as a circle at 176, 98, 48 and 24px | The logo: the full mark, drawn for each size, from system/logo/mark/sizes/ (Logo) |
| Watermark | 150 × 150, shown bottom-right on videos | Export the circle on a transparent ground |
Thumbnail rules
Tokens --thumb-* in system/tokens.css and the .thumb component in components.src.css (fixed 1280×720 artboard, .thumb-frame to scale it to fit).
- One idea per thumbnail: a Polyamine title of three to six words, one photograph or woodcut, the logo (on its white disc only over a busy photograph; see Logo).
- Grounds as on the site: paper, white, sunlight or night, joined to a photograph by a torn edge.
- Check every thumbnail at 360px and 168px with the duration badge in place. Long titles get cut off at 168px ("Find your peopl…"): shorten them or move them left.
- Labels are Apfel, uppercase. At feed size (×0.28) 24–28px labels shrink to about 7px and can't be read. Text that must be read goes to 40px and up on the artboard; anything smaller is decoration.
- Thumbnail text and video titles follow Voice.
- Polyamine is not yet licensed, so export final PNGs from a machine that has it installed.
Channel art rules
- Handle:
@SeedsOfRenaissance. Channel line: the YouTube channel line in Voice. About text: the description rung of the ladder in Voice. YouTube allows 1,000 characters. - Banner: the logo, name and line inside the 1546 × 423 safe area; the rest of the strip is for image (woodcut swallows, mountains). Paper banner for YouTube's light theme, night for dark.
- Avatar and watermark: the logo's mark, not a simplified version. Use the size file closest to each display size.
- Lower third: a torn white slip with the podcast in Apfel, the guest's name in Polyamine and one line about them.
- Links: Instagram @seedsofrenaissance · Facebook facebook.com/seeds0frenaissance · X @SeedRenaissance · LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/seedsofrenaissance · Linktree linktr.ee/seedsofrenaissance · Website secondrenaissance.net · YouTube and Substack. YouTube shows up to 14 links with custom titles.
Earlier channel directions (Uriel, round 4, before the current system): archive/youtube-channel-directions-round-4.html.
Decisions: planning 2608 · decision log