How to Create a YouTube Banner in Affinity Photo

In this tutorial, we will learn how to create a YouTube banner in Affinity Photo. This is called channel art or a channel header image. The banner or channel art is what appears across the top of a person’s YouTube channel page. It’s the first thing visitors see when they visit a channel. So, it’s important that what you create for your banner includes important information you want people to know about your channel such as a tagline if you have one, a website, your upload schedule, etc.

Go to the following links to download the links used in the tutorial:

• Man Looking at Mountains
• Agency FB Bold Font
• Spilled Pepper
• Pasta
• Curlz MT Font
• Berlin Sans FB Font

Step 1

First, go to File > New. Select Web. Set the Width to 2560 px and set the Height to 1440 px. Make sure the DPI is at 72. Then, click Create.

Step 2

Next, go to the Tools Panel and grab the Rectangle Tool. Draw a rectangle. Go to the Transform Panel and type 1546 px in the Width and 423 px in the Height. In the Toolbar, make sure Snapping is turned on. Then, place the rectangle in the center of the document.

Step 3

Now, take the Move Tool. Go to the ruler area on the left and drag two guidelines. Place the first guideline on the left side of the rectangle. Then, place the second guideline on the right side of the rectangle. Go to the ruler at the top and place a guide at the top and the bottom of the rectangle. This is the minimum size for a desktop and a mobile device.

Step 4

Next, select the rectangle. Go to the Transform Panel and type 1855 px into the Width box. Leave the height as is. Take the rectangle and place it in the center of the document. Go to the Alignment Panel and select Align Center and Align Middle.

Step 5

Now, drag some guidelines from the ruler and place them on the left and right of the rectangle.

Step 6

This other area which is 2560 px by 423 px is the maximum size for a desktop. Delete the rectangle. Go to View and select Lock Guides.

Step 7

Go to File > Place and select the image of the man looking at the mountains. Go to the Transform Panel and turn on the Lock Aspect Ratio. Then, resize the image. Adjust the image so that the part of the man and the mountain are in the safe zone area.

Step 8

After that, grab the Rectangle Tool from the Tools Panel. Draw a rectangle over the document so that it covers it. Go to the Swatches Panel and double click the color to open the Color Chooser. Set the color of the rectangle to #E06A04.

Step 9

With the rectangle still selected, go to the Layers Panel. Set the Blend Mode to Overlay and lower the Opacity to about 38%.

Step 10

Now, go to the Tools Panel and select the Artistic Text Tool. Take the tool and type the word Greg. Then, press CTRL + Shift and drag a copy of the text to the right side of the man. Type the word The. Now, press CTRL + Shift again and drag a copy of the text to the bottom part of the safe zone area. Type the word Globetrotter.

Step 11

Select all three of the text. Then, go to the Swatches Panel and set the color to white. Once you’ve done that, go to the Font Family and select the Agency FB Bold Font.

Step 12

Set the size of the text to 200 pt.

Step 13

Grab the Rectangle Tool from the Tools Panel. Draw a rectangle over the safe zone area. Next, go to the Swatches Panel and turn off the stroke and the fill color.

We’ll now create the other YouTube banner in Affinity Photo.

Step 14

Now, go to File > Place and select the image of the spilled pepper. Next, stretch the image. Then, go to the Layers Panel and drag the pepper image inside of the rectangle. After that, resize the image so that the center part of the image is in the center of the safe zone area.

Step 15

Go to File > Open and select the image of the pasta. The image will open in a new tab. Copy the image and paste it onto the design.

Step 16

Make sure you still have the Lock Aspect Ratio on in the Transform Panel. Next, resize the image. Place the image on the left side. In the Layers Panel, drag the image below the rectangle layer. Then stretch the image.

Step 17

After that, press CTRL + J to make a duplicate of the pasta image. Right-click on the duplicated image. Go to Transform and click Flip Horizontal. Then, hold Shift and drag the image to the right side.

Step 18

Now, grab the Artistic Text Tool from the Tools Panel. Type Chef It Up! Then, go to the Font Family and choose your font. The font I chose is called Curlz MT. Then go to the Swatches Panel and set the color of the text. The hex code for the color I used is #3C71D0.

Step 19

Next, grab the Rectangle Tool from the Tools Panel. Draw a thin rectangle underneath the text. Go to the Swatches Panel and set the fill color of the text to the following hex code #D0A53C.

Step 20

Grab the Artistic Text Tool from Tools Panel. Type New Cooking Videos. Then, press CTRL + J to duplicate the text and place it below the original. After that, type Every Wednesday. The font I chose was Berlin Sans FB.

Step 21

Now, grab the Rectangle Tool. Draw a rectangle that covers the entire document. Set the fill color to the blue color we used before. The hex code for it is #3C71D0. In the Layers Panel, set the Blend Mode to Linear Light and lower the Opacity of the rectangle to 30%. Drag this rectangle beneath the rectangle of the safe zone area.

Step 22

When you’re satisfied with your design. You’ll go to File > Export. You can save the design as JPEG or a PNG file. Also, for YouTube, you want to make sure that the file size isn’t over 6 MB. Then, you click Export and save your design.

Step 23

To remove the guideline, go to View and uncheck Show Guides.

Congratulations! You now know how to create a YouTube banner in Affinity Photo. For more Affinity Photo tutorials, check out this article on how to create a caricature.