I’ve had a blast working with Drivetribe overhauling the look and feel of their recent Youtube thumbnails.
Anyone who knows me knows how much Top Gear and The Grand Tour was a cornerstone of my childhood and teenage years (they’re probably the main reason I’m so obsessed with cars – thanks guys!), so to be working with Drivetribe was a bit of a dream come true for me.
The more I’ve dug into the art of the YouTube thumbnail, the more I’ve realised that there’s a decent amount of thought that needs to be put into these compositions. They’re not just pretty pictures – they’re a psychological call-to-action, the first connection between content and audience, drawing them in and making them curious about the video that lays beyond.
There’s often a deceptive amount of editing that goes into these, and even simple looking compositions can be stitched together from multiple different photographs. The balance between simplicity and detail, the push to hone the image until it’s as clear and compelling as can be, is addictive: I’m loving the challenge, and it’s fun to be flexing my good old-fashioned Photoshop skills that I learned in college all those years ago and honed over the (many) years since.
