YouTube Banner Maker

A channel banner is the first thing people see when they land on your channel page, and YouTube crops it differently on every surface. This maker works on a 2560 × 1440 px canvas and draws the safe areas on top, so you can see exactly which parts of your design will survive on a TV, a desktop monitor and a phone.

Rule of thumb: put your channel name and upload schedule inside the central safe area, and treat the outer band as decoration only.

Where a banner is visible, and how much is left

YouTube renders your uploaded 2560 × 1440 image into several differently shaped areas. The canvas is never cropped, but most of it is hidden on smaller surfaces.

Those numbers describe a visible area, not a crop: the image is scaled so the shorter dimension fills. In practice this means the central 1546 × 423 px block is the part that is visible on a phone, and the top and bottom thirds of your canvas may be clipped on a TV.

Banner design tips that survive cropping

• Design for the phone first. If the key message only works on desktop, most of your mobile visitors miss it.
• Keep the safe area clear. A solid or calm background in the central band beats a busy pattern behind small text.
• Add a schedule only if you keep to it. “New videos every Friday” is useful; an outdated upload promise is not.
• Include social handles in the centre. The outer edges disappear on mobile, so do not rely on the far left or right.
• Export as PNG when text matters. JPG is fine for photographic banners, but PNG keeps small type crisp.
• Check contrast on a dark background. YouTube may show your banner on a dark or light theme depending on the viewer’s settings.