How to Find the Right YouTube Banner Size, Format, Ratios & More (2024)

A YouTube banner is your brand’s first impression. It sets the tone for your channel and draws visitors to watch your videos and subscribe.

However, a great YouTube banner must match the required specifications in terms of size, ratio and format. These factors help you showcase the banner elements in the best way possible, giving it a professional and aesthetic appeal.

How do you create a YouTube banner that’s compliant, grabs audience attention and increases engagement?

In this article, you will learn how to create a YouTube banner with the correct format and ratio while observing the best design practices. You will also find Visme YouTube banner templates you can use to create optimally designed banners on the go.

Table of Contents

• Benefits of a YouTube Banner
• 3 Best Practices When Creating a YouTube Banner
• How to Upload Your YouTube Banner
• 10 YouTube Banner Templates You Can Use

A YouTube banner showcases your brand's tagline or slogan in an eye-catching way. A good YouTube banner also features high-quality photos and graphics to create visual interest. It can also give your viewers an inside look into the channel, grab their attention with colorful graphics and stay on-brand with text, logo and font.

Aside from the visual banner, a YouTube banner enables you to feature elements that help assist in brand recall. Use the same logo, font and colors on your website and marketing materials. This way, you create brand consistency and make remembering your brand much easier for your audience.

Finally, a banner can feature a call to action to encourage visitors to perform a specific action aside from watching your videos or subscribing to your channel. Examples include following you on other social media sites and visiting your website. These can help grow your online presence and visibility outside of YouTube.

The Ideal YouTube Banner Size & Dimensions

As with most social media sites, you must observe proper image sizes on your profile to optimally display them to visitors. YouTube is no different. Here are things you must know regarding the YouTube banner size you need to use for your channel.

YouTube Banner Guidelines for Mobile & Desktop

The ideal YouTube banner size is 2560 x 1440 pixels, while the minimum image dimension is 2048 x 1152 pixels.

From here, you must also know how to design your YouTube banner for different devices, each with different “viewing areas.”

Visitors who view your channel from their televisions will see the entire banner. But if they view it from their desktop and mobile devices, they will only see a portion of the banner, also called the minimum image safe area.

This image safe area is where you should place the text, logo and other information you want visible on your YouTube banner regardless of the device they’re using. It is set to 1235 x 338 pixels.

YouTube Banner Aspect Ratio

To ensure your banner will appear correctly across multiple devices, you must observe YouTube's standard aspect ratio of 16:9. This is observed across other images in the platform. For instance, the ideal YouTube thumbnail size is 1280 × 720 pixels (minimum width of 640 pixels). It is smaller than the banner but observes the 16:9 aspect ratio nonetheless.

Using a different aspect ratio may cause letterboxes or distorted images on your banner when you upload it.

YouTube Banner Format and File Size

The accepted file formats for your YouTube banner are JPG, PNG, BMP and GIF (not animated). The file size limit for your banner is 6MB. With Visme's PNG maker, you can easily create beautiful images with transparent backgrounds for websites, graphics, and marketing.

Now that you know the ideal YouTube banner size, you must know how to create an optimized banner. Here are some of the best practices to follow when designing your YouTube banner.

Only Use High-Quality Images

Feature images with the highest resolution on your YouTube banner to build credibility with your viewers and subscribers. You can tell if an image is high-quality if it doesn't become blurry or pixelated when you zoom in.

You can use Visme’s collection of high-resolution stock images to show in your YouTube banner. Just type in the keyword of the image you’re looking for and it will show you hundreds of photos to choose from.

If you can’t find the images from Visme’s royalty-free collection, Visme’s AI image generator can come in handy. Type in the precise description of the image you want the tool to create for you and its style in your prompt. Be as descriptive as possible in your prompt so the tool can generate the image you want for your banner.

If your banner needs fine-tuning, Visme has a robust editing tool that allows you to resize, rotate, and crop images with pinpoint accuracy.

Choose Consistent Brand Colors and Fonts

To help build brand recognition and awareness much faster, you must use the same branding assets across all your marketing materials, including your YouTube banner. Doing so creates a sense of familiarity and trust, increasing customer loyalty and engagement.

You can use Visme’s Brand Design tool to manage your banner and other designs, ensuring they all use the same font, colors and logo. It lets you import your site’s brand assets, which you can use for your upcoming design projects.

This feature improves your design workflow by creating consistent custom images containing your branding in just a few clicks.

Here’s what our users think about our powerful visual design tool.

“Visme helped us improve our operational efficiency by empowering our subject-matter experts to create content that aligns to our brand voice and standards,” says Kimberly Barrett, Wellbeing Consultant at Ameritas.

Include a YouTube Banner CTA

When creating your YouTube banner, include a CTA that nudges your viewers to take action and do something for your brand. Common YouTube banner CTAs include asking people to subscribe to your channel, follow you on social media or visit your website.

Some banners indicate arrows pointing to links at the bottom right of the banner to encourage more action. In the Visme editor, you’ll find a wide variety of premade call-to-action content blocks to help engage your audience and trigger specific actions.

Simply navigate to Basic> Call to Action. Scroll through the available template block and double-click or click and drag the CTA block to put it on the Canvas.

Refer to other banner ideas for inspiration on designing your YouTube banner with a CTA in mind.

How to Upload Your YouTube Banner

Uploading your banner to your YouTube channel is easy. On the site, click your profile icon on the top right and select “Your channel” from the drop-down menu.

On the next page, click “Customize channel,” which opens a new window to your YouTube Studio account.

Then click on the Branding tab and look for the Banner Image section. Click “Upload” to upload your YouTube banner.

After uploading the banner, YouTube will show you which part of the banner is the safe area or the section viewable on all devices.

You want all the important details to show inside the safe area. If the important elements are outside this area, edit the banner to fix them.

Once satisfied, click “Done” to use the banner on your channel.

Before uploading your YouTube banner, create one that follows the best practices in the previous section. And to help you enforce the use of high-quality images, brand consistency and CTA on your banner, consider using a YouTube banner template from Visme.

Choose one that fits the ideal YouTube banner size template where all the important elements are already located in the safe area. However, you have the freedom to move the elements to your desired location in the banner.

From here, edit the placeholder elements with their text and images so you don’t have to start from scratch. This comes in handy, especially if you don’t fancy yourself as a designer.

Just as important, you also get to use Visme’s advanced features to create professional and high-quality banners that capture your brand’s essence.

Below are templates to choose from and help expedite your banner creation process:

1. Management Consulting YouTube Banner Template

This YouTube banner contains the header, subheader and a CTA inside the safe area. The logo is on the right and only visible on desktops and television. Use this template if you want a traditional and conservative design that aims to earn the trust of your audience.

2. Travel YouTube Banner

The banner template shows all important elements, including your logo even on mobile devices. There are also two images on opposite sides of the safe area, so you can consider including photos of yourself and places you’ve been to here.

With Visme's mobile app for iOS, you can create, design and collaborate with your design on the go. You're no longer limited to your desktop.

3. Photography Channel YouTube Banner Template

As a photographer, you want to showcase your work on all your social media images, including your YouTube banner. This template does exactly that for you. You can edit out placeholders for large images in different parts of the banner. However, only your brand’s header and subheading will be visible in the safe area.

You can add flair to displaying the mages on your YouTube banner with Visme. Use photo filters or change the angle of your images to achieve your banner’s desired look and feel.

4. Gaming Channel YouTube Banner Template

The colors used in this banner template are perfect for gaming-related channels. The playfulness of orange and the youth of yellow creates a fun and exciting design that gaming lovers would appreciate. It also has a header, subheader and image slot visible for mobile devices.

If you like the template’s design layout but wish to change its color to your brand, you can create your own color palette and theme. You can use the created palette on all your Visme projects for brand consistency.

5. Fitness Channel YouTube Banner Template

If you want to take a minimalist approach to your YouTube banner design, use this template. The combination of white, purple and teal creates a noble and spiritual vibe for your banner, setting the tone for your brand. Despite having two images, a header and a subheader, the template has lots of white space, allowing the elements to breathe and maintain the banner’s minimalist feel.

The template also uses graphics and illustrations that align with the fitness theme. If you’re not in this same industry, you can use Visme’s icon finder to help you locate those that better reflect your brand.

6. Travel Vlog YouTube Banner Template

If you’re serious about building an online brand, you should include your image on all their social profiles, including their YouTube banners. That's you get from this template.

Showing a photo of yourself allow people to put a face on your YouTube channel and videos that people can instantly recognize. This can help you build real human connections and your subscribers faster.

The background image also helps communicate the places you’ve been as a travel vlogger using high-quality images.

7. Soccer Channel YouTube Banner Template

This straightforward banner template lets you showcase your header, subheader and two images in the safe area for mobile viewers. The background is similar to what news outlets use for breaking news updates, which is on brand with the template’s theme.

To align the banner’s header and subheader with your brand, change and format its font type.

8. Healthcare YouTube Channel Banner Template

A blue-themed banner like this template allows you to build trust with your audience, which is ideal for YouTubers in the healthcare niche. To establish your authority, it's crucial to have a professional image of yourself on your social media profiles. Fortunately, this template can help you with that.

If you want to use the YouTube banner on your other marketing materials, you can download it in different formats (JPG/PNG, PDF and more).

9. Nature and Wildlife Channel YouTube Banner Template

For YouTube channel owners focusing on nature, this green-themed banner template help communicate your message much clearer. You can replace the background image with something else that aligns with your brand. Also, the white and yellow colors for the font and icons help make them stand out in the banner.
Let’s say you want feedback from upper management about your YouTube banner. You can use Visme’s sharing options, which lets you share your banner in private and gives the designer or stakeholders commenting privileges.

10. Real Estate YouTube Banner Template

Real estate brokers need to win people's trust to get more engagement on YouTube and sell more homes. This particular template is designed to help you in that direction by featuring a prominent placeholder image where you can easily insert your own. Also, the image is the only element in full color as the background has a dark green filter, while the safe area uses a teal and white combination.

If you want to establish a design workflow for your YouTube banner creation, use Visme’s design collaboration features. You can give people in your organization access to the banner. From here, they can edit the design or provide feedback to the designers.

Easily Create Stunning YouTube Banners & Graphics with Visme

Knowing your YouTube banner’s ideal size, ratio, format and safe area is just part of the puzzle when building your channel. But by following these guidelines, you can create a banner that will captivate your audience and achieve your channel goals.

Visme is all you need to design a professional-quality YouTube banner to grow your video views and subscribers much easier.

Use any of its professional and well-designed templates to build your banner on and edit the placeholder elements with your own. You can even import your brand logo, font and color from your website to apply it to your design with just a few clicks.

Also, you can create other YouTube graphics, like channel art and video thumbnails consistent with your brand.

Learn more about how Visme can help you and your team create branded and engaging visual content.