Ah, the ubiquitous thumbnail image — familiar to all denizens of the internet. We surf the web in an overwhelming ocean of content craving our precious attention. Though in many respects, we make our decisions of what to click based on other factors than the superficial, the glamour of an eye-catching thumbnail tends to increase our likelihood to engage with a piece of content.

I suppose I really began thinking about thumbnail images in earnest back in 2017 when I started blogging on STEEM. However, it was always in the back of my mind, and I tended to be quite lazy when it came to creating a thumbnail image for my content, often using other people's work to highlight my mostly poetry/music content.

In late 2018 I switched to attempting to use all my own images for my blogs, and though initially I found this depressing and cumbersome, over time I began to enjoy crafting visuals to accompany my work. In 2019, I decided to delve more into video content and began uploading on YouTube. This was where I really saw the value of a good thumbnail image. There was just one problem — I still couldn't be bothered to put the work in.
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After spending countless hours on a project, I would typically be exhausted and burned out on it by the time it was to be released. Thumbnails were an afterthought that I would halfheartedly toss together at the end. The result was that most of my images were quite rubbish!

At the end of 2020 I returned to YouTube uploading and made some more friends on the platform that inspired me to get into livestreaming, which pursuit ended up allowing me to secure the necessary watchtime to apply for monetization. I joined the YouTube partner program right at the end of November 2020.

As time passed and I realized I had more opportunities to earn from the time and energy I put into my creative work, it began to actually seem worth it to put in the required effort to make better thumbnails.

Just recently — around two weeks ago — I decided to re-do as many of my old video thumbnails as possible as practice. As tedious as I used to believe it would be, I have actually found it quite rewarding to do so — and even very fun! Though I am absolutely an amateur, self-taught visual artist who has lots to learn about graphic design, I can tangibly feel progress occurring. Here are a few examples of my practice below.

First of all, thumbnails will often appear quite small where they are displayed, often on a mobile device. Due to this, simple is best. I initially disliked the guidance of some to not add any text, but have come to agree with this. It can be VERY difficult to read text on thumbnail images even if it is large and bold. The style I am going for right now is quite simplistic and hinges on the use of a DPEND logo.

Here are a few general principles based on my current understanding of what makes a good thumbnail image:

1) Aesthetically pleasing — very simply, it "looks nice." It entices a click just by virtue of this.
2) Simple — there are only one or two main focal points of the image.
3) Stylistic — it does a good job of representing the style or "brand" of the content.
4) Colorful — with a thumbnail, contrast and saturation are your friend. Makes it stand out.
5) Familiar — the object(s) in the image are recognizable.
6) Bold — the object(s) in the image stand out from one another, as well as from the background.
7) Cohesive — the overall image looks professional and "makes sense."

I am going to be doing a YT livestream after posting this on HIVE in which I will re-work several of my old thumbnail images. Feel free to attend and say hello! If you see this post before tomorrow, you can click "set reminder" on the embedded video at the bottom to be notified when it goes live. I will be watching chat and am open to taking questions or suggestions of things to try.

Recently, I decided to experiment with using Deep Dream Generator to add some detail, color, and "movement" to thumbnails. For the type of content I do, I think it helps represent the vibe I am going for, though one could easily overcomplicate images this way. Examples below from my two recent beatbox/keyboard improv livestreams: