How to Make an Awesome YouTube Banner in 2021

Every type of online profile needs a good banner or background image that lets you stand out from the crowd. That goes double for YouTube, a fiercely competitive platform where users pay attention to even the smallest of details in order to build an audience. But while creating a simple YouTube banner isn’t particularly difficult, it does take some skill and imagination to make truly memorable channel art Either that or a great tool that comes with many design options to play with.

If you’re looking for a good YouTube banner creator you came to the right place because that’s what this article is all about. Today we’re going to be looking at the top 10 best YouTube banner creators currently available, including a few that you probably haven’t heard about before. All these tools will allow you to make an awesome YouTube banner in 2021 but they each have their own pros and cons. Before we jump into the tools themselves, though, let’s talk a bit about dimensions. If you want to save YouTube videos to MP4, click YouTube to MP4 to start for free now.

What are The Perfect YouTube Banner Size and Dimensions?

As I’m sure you’ve noticed many times in the past, YouTube is very specific when it comes to channel banners. Whether you’re visiting the channel of someone who just started YouTube or a massive established creator like PewDiePie, you’ll find that their banners have pretty much the same dimensions. Of course, things will look different on different devices so you’ll need to account for that, however, you should focus primarily on the desktop dimensions since those are the most important.

If you want your banner to look great on YouTube, Google recommends you go with a 2560 x 1440 px image. Users won’t be able to see all of it at a glance when visiting your channel as parts of it will only be visible once they scroll past a certain point. But the entire image will be there.

While we recommend going with the optimal dimensions for the best results, it’s worth noting that YouTube does give you a bit of leeway. You can upload banners as small as 2048 x 1152 px or very narrow ones like 2560 x 423 px. Keep in mind, though, that the maximum width will always be 2560 px. Anything larger than that and your banner will be automatically resized to fit the recommended aspect ratio. As far as the YouTube banner size is concerned, you can upload images of up to 6MB.

5 Free YouTube Banner Creators Recommended

1. iPiccy

iPiccy is a simple yet powerful YouTube banner maker that you can use entirely for free. While the website follows the tried and true 4-step method for creating banners, you can expect iPiccy to be a bit more time-consuming than a lot of other tools. There are a lot of options to experiment with but very little hand-holding, so wrapping your head around everything may take a while for some users.

Once you do get the hang of it, iPiccy is an absolute joy to use. You can customize everything from the background to shadows, colors, saturation, and more. It’s even possible to create a multi-layer banner with the tool and add certain special effects and stickers to it. All in all, a very solid tool, if a bit difficult to learn at first.

2. Photovisi

Photovisi specializes primarily in collages but also has tools that let you create social media covers. The YouTube banner tool is fairly simple but there are a few interesting designs and themes you can play around with. When using the tool, YouTube banner dimensions are permanently locked at 2560 x 1440 px, so there’s no need to worry about having to resize anything once you’re done.

You won’t find any pre-made templates you can customize so you’ll need to start from scratch with your own image when you want to create a banner. You can then add shapes and text to it, as well as upload backgrounds and change their colors. Photovisi has a premium version for creating collages but the banner maker can be used for free.

3. BannerBoo

BannerBoo is a website designed for users who are somewhat tech-savvy. If you’re using the free version that is. The premium version gives you a lot of features that can speed up the creation process but we recommend signing up for a free account just to get your feet wet. The tool comes with some pretty complex features so you should take the time to learn how everything works before thinking about upgrading.

As a free user, you might not be able to play around with certain elements but you will be able to take advantage of the most important editing tools offered by the site. There’s also a very useful feature that shows how much of the banner will actually be visible when users first visit your channel (before they start scrolling). That can save you a lot of time if you want to focus on just that area instead of worrying about the entire image.

4. GraphicSprings

GraphicSprings gives you quite a lot to work with considering the tool is entirely free. There are templates and stock images related to several industries to help you get started along with the option of adding text, backgrounds, and other elements to them. It’s not necessarily the most advanced YouTube banner maker out there but it can get the job done just fine.

Banners aside, GraphicSprings also offers a very easy to use logo maker that you can also use for free. The logo is just as important as the banner if you’re a YouTuber so this tool can definitely come in handy. There is a wide variety of other tools and services available at GraphicSprings, including website building, many of which can also help you improve your YouTube channel. 

5. BannerWoo

Not to be confused with BannerBoo, this is another good option for creating YouTube banners with relatively little effort. The website is very upfront about the fact that it’s not a professional designing software. Rather, BannerWoo provides you with a simple set of tools and lets you use them as you see fit. That means you’ll need to put in more work to create a good banner but, on the bright side, the software is entirely free.

The biggest drawback of BannerWoo is that it doesn’t quite support the ideal YouTube banner dimensions. At most, you can create 2000 x 2000 px banners, which is a bit smaller than the minimum width of 2048 px. However, you can easily make it a bit larger in Paint or another similar software without losing too much quality.

5 Selective YouTube Banners with Creative Templates 

1. Fotor

Fotor is a very popular website that offers a wide range of photo editing tools. Possibly best known for its photo collage making tool, the website also has a YouTube banner creator with plenty of nice features. The template variety is pretty impressive and you can always upload your own images in order to create a custom banner.

In addition to banners, Fotor can also be used to create thumbnails, wallpapers, covers, and many other types of channel/page art. You’ll need to create an account and sign up for a premium account starting at $3.33/mo if you want to take full advantage of the website. However, you can use Fotor for free as well provided you don’t mind some of the limitations.

2. Canva

If you look up how to make a YouTube banner on search engines, chances are you’ll find Canva near the top. Canva has been around for a very long time and is easily one of the best-known photo editing websites out there. There’s an entire section of Canva dedicated exclusively to YouTube channel art with countless templates to choose from, many of which are available for free.

Speaking of which, this YouTube banner creator is pretty generous with the number of templates it lets you access for free. You don’t necessarily need to sign up in order to create a banner but you will need an account if you want to save your work online. As far as the premium plans are concerned, they are pretty expensive. The cheapest one starts at $12.95/mo but it does include multiple software licenses. Canva offers a 30-free trial for the premium plans so don’t hesitate to check them out.

3. Adobe Spark

Adobe needs very little introduction at this point as the company has developed many popular products over the years, including Photoshop, After Effects, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Dreamweaver, and many more. Adobe Spark is perhaps not as well-known as some of the others but it’s definitively one you should check out because you can use it to create very beautiful YouTube banners. One of the best things about Adobe Spark is that it comes with many templates optimized for the recommended YouTube banner dimensions. 

The software can be used for free but you will need to create an account before you can get started. Also worth noting is that Adobe puts a watermark on every banner you design, which can only be removed by upgrading to a paid plan. Adobe Spark premium will set you back around $12/mo for an individual license but there is a free 14-day trial you can take advantage of first.

4. BeFunky

BeFunky is a jack-of-all-trades photo editing website that gives you everything ranging from cropping and editing tools to collage makers, background removers, portrait retouchers, and more. The YouTube banner tool uses a simple 4-step process that anyone can follow. Creating background art for your channel with BeFunky is not only straightforward but also very fun to boot.

The selection of templates available with the free plan is quite limited but should give you a good idea of what to expect if you decide to upgrade. The premium package will cost you $6.99 per month but there are big discounts for opting for yearly billing instead. If you would rather create a unique banner instead of using a pre-made template, BeFunky has a very useful blank canvas feature with adjustable dimensions and lots of designs to choose from.

5. Bannersnack

If you’re looking for a powerful YouTube banner maker that lets you customize things in great detail you’re going to love what Bannersnack has to offer. The tool has a slightly steeper learning curve compared to many of the others on this list but can be used to create much more impressive banners. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to start working on a design without signing up so you’ll need an account even for the free version.

The YouTube banner maker offered by Bannersnack only comes with one template along with the ability to create channel art from scratch. Upgrading to one of the paid plans unlocks a large variety of additional templates and extra features. The cheapest plan starts at $7/mo but only lets you create up to 30 designs per month. If you need more than that, it will cost you between $18 and $36/mo to upgrade to the higher tiers.

Conclusion

Making your own YouTube banner can be a lot of fun and something you should seriously consider. If you’re thinking about creating videos, you might as well start by creating your channel art too. As you can see, you don’t have to be a designer in order to create a good YouTube banner because there are plenty of tools out there that can do much of the work for you. All you need is some imagination and a little bit of elbow grease. Click to see the Best YouTube Channels of the past year.