If you have a YouTube channel already, you know how hard it can be to get people to watch your videos. The pros understand that thumbnails play a vital role in it. Veterans know that even things like YouTube thumbnail fonts can make a significant difference.
With thousands of videos being uploaded every day on niches you don’t even know about, it’s become relatively hard to stand out. However, you can convince people to click on your video on a subconscious level.
Your thumbnail can be used to target people on that level using unique thumbnails, relevant colors, and great fonts (with attention-grabbing copy).
In this article, we’ll go over the best YouTube thumbnail fonts you can use for your videos, along with where to find them.
Let’s check them out!
Table of Contents
15 Top YouTube Thumbnail Fonts in 2021
When it comes to YouTube thumbnail fonts, there are a few things to keep in mind, such as font types, font sizes, and colors. A YouTube video that converts viewers needs a custom thumbnail that compels users to watch the video.
Keeping that in mind, using a good YouTube thumbnail font can be what determines if people are interested in watching your video or not. That’s why it’s crucial to use eye-catching yet clearly defined fonts.
Furthermore, keeping the same color scheme for your font as your video background will make the video more coherent. You can also play around with the text and overlay image options and see what fits best for you.
Rather than following trends, it’s better to follow your own brand ideas. It helps keep things unique and lets you craft a niche. Below, we’re going to discuss some YouTube thumbnail fonts that you can use for your YouTube channel today:
1. Impact
Impact is a bold yet simple font, and it’s straightforward to understand. It’s often considered among the best fonts for YouTube.
That’s because it has a strong front face, making it easier to read on a small thumbnail.
This font is great for reviews, reactions, or prank videos.
You can download the font here
2. Bebas Neue
Bebas Neue is a very popular font that is great for both videos and thumbnails. Its sublime and elegant design is the reason why it’s often used by a lot of YouTubers, regardless of their content.
You can download the font here
3. Caribold
Caribold is a bold font that utilizes borders and outlines for emphasis. It looks very impacting as it stands out from background images due to its dark shadows.
The font also works with a variety of channels, but it’s mostly used for how-to videos now.
You can download the font from here
4. Chicken Pickle
Chicken pickle is a stylish handwritten brush font. It’s very gentle, making it an ideal font for recipe videos, painting videos, and even music tutorials.
It’s easy to read and not very loud either.
You can download the font here.
5. Juan Cock
Juan Cock is a bit bolder and more serious as compared to other fonts. It has a minimalist font element to it that gives it a unique look.
It can be used for a variety of things, but it’s considered to be a masculine font. Therefore, it fits more into gaming, the military, and other similar things.
You can download the font from here
6. Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast is a bold and whimsical font that is used for non-serious videos. It’s often a highlight on any YouTube thumbnails it’s used on.
It’s mostly used by streamers, gamers, people who make life hack YouTube videos, and other similar videos.
You can download the font here.
7. Badaboom BB
Badaboom BB is a loud font that is used to quickly garner attention. The font style is usually used for how-to tutorials, DIY YouTube videos, and gaming videos.
These sort of videos and the Badaboom font work together perfectly because such videos require users to focus their attention on specific elements, and this is the perfect font to do just that.
You can download the font here.
8. League Spartan
Out of all the font styles, League Spartan is one of the simplest fonts for YouTube thumbnails. It’s one of those fonts YouTubers use when they’re starting their YouTube channel.
You’ll mostly see the sans serif font on recipe videos and some explainer videos.
You can download the font from here.
9. Lilita One
Lilita One is another YouTube font that’s used by tons of channels. The font is perfect for a video thumbnail because it’s bold, simple, and easy to read.
Any YouTube video that needs to explain what the video is about uses Lilita One in large font size.
You can download the font here.
10. Rebel Nation
Rebel Nation is a street graffiti-inspired street youth font. YouTube channels that thrive on such topics tend to use them for their video thumbnails. It’s also a cool font for making your channel art. However, keep in mind that it would need to adhere to the recommended YouTube banner size.
You can download the font from here.
11. Bernhard
Bernhard is the ideal thumbnail font because it’s technically a script font that has been enlarged and designed to be used on videos.
It has various elements that make it elegant, modern, and fresh. Those elements make the font perfect for history and book-based channels.
You can download the font here.
12. River Drive
YouTube fonts need to be bold and outspoken. Therefore, the best fonts tend to be large and legible. River Drive is the ideal example of a typeface that’s bold and easy to read, while also being slightly faded to not overshadow the videos. It’s also a great option for wedding fonts because of its composition and handwritten-like effect.
If you want to make your channel about music or traveling, typeface styles like River Drive are ideal for you.
You can download the font from here.
13. Config Rounded
Config Rounded is an extremely professional and sleek font. It comes in different typefaces and can define the kind of channel that you have.
Your video content and titles determine the best font for your channels. Therefore, if you have an informative channel, this particular font will look great with any background.
If you need the title and text to be modern, elegant, and professional, Config Rounded is ideal for you.
You can download the font here.
14. Budmo
Budmo is one of the cool fonts that utilizes art, creative design, and a stylish typeface to create fun letters, symbols, and glyphs.
If you have a fun and quirky YouTube channel, Budmo would work great for you. It can also work well with social media, any image you create, or any related posts.
You can even use the font when designing your video thumbnails. However, if you’re doing that, keep the recommended YouTube thumbnail size in mind.
You can download the font from here.
15. Chucklesome
Chucklesome is the perfect example of a cartoon-style comic book-based font that’s inspired by typical comic fonts. The comic elements include bold outlines, artsy typefaces, and the ability to stand out on any background.
If you’re creating absolute bangers for videos as a gamer, movie enthusiast, or comic expert, you can drop all other fonts and go for Chucklesome.
You can download the font here.
Tips on Improving Your YouTube Thumbnail Fonts
All YouTube creators can use some tips on how to improve their YouTube thumbnails to increase their CTR (click-through rate).
Keep the following things in mind when using YouTube thumbnail fonts:
1. Consistency in Font Usage
One of the most important things that a lot of new YouTubers tend to overlook is using different fonts for different videos and content.
For example, if you’ve developed a YouTube description template, you are likely to use it throughout. The same is goes for your thumbnail fonts. Once people settle on a YouTube thumbnail font, they tend to use the same for all their videos to stay consistent.
Furthermore, consistency helps build a brand. Therefore, the next time someone sees that particular font, it’ll immediately remind them of your YouTube channel.
2. Choose Between Sentence Case and Title Case
It’s important to understand the difference between sentence case and title case.
A sentence case is when your titles are written like a typical sentence. Therefore, only the first word will have its first letter capitalized.
Alternatively, a title case is when all the words of your title have their first letter capitalized, except the transition words, prepositions, and the likes of them.
Choose what you want to work with and maintain it throughout. However, most people opt for title cases.
3. Leverage Colors into Your Fonts
Using colors can have a massive impact on your fonts and thumbnails. Using the right colors ensures that you get people’s attention in the right place.
While using a black or white font color is recommended, you should experiment with additional colors and figure out what works best for you.
Furthermore, it also depends on your channel, what type of videos you upload, and more. Just like in thumbnails, color is an important aspect when looking for inspiration for catchy YouTube banners.
4. Use More Than One YouTube Thumbnail Font
Using only one font throughout can become monotonous. While being consistent is crucial, that doesn’t mean you should restrict yourself and use the same font in all cases.
For example, you should use different fonts for different playlists, different video types, and more.
You could use futuristic fonts for one playlist and use any of the fonts above for another.
5. Select Appropriate Backgrounds for the Thumbnails
Thumbnail backgrounds play an important role since they are just as responsible for CTR as the thumbnail font. More importantly, your background should resonate with your channel and your font.
For example, if your font has a light color, you can’t have a light background. That would make the visibility poor and it wouldn’t be very welcoming.
Therefore, make sure the background and font colors contrast well.
Additionally, it is also important to use the appropriate YouTube video size to follow the specifications and guidelines for creating a thumbnail.
6. Add Shading and Other Effects to the Font
Using various effects like shading font helps emphasize the font. You can essentially use these effects to help people focus on the right thing.
For example, if your thumbnail text is long, you would want people to look at a few power words to get them reeled in. That’s where you utilize these elements.
7. Use Colored Ribbons for the Font (That Complement the Background)
Colored ribbons are basically font backgrounds. If you use colored ribbons, your font will be in front of colored text boxes.
While that may seem counterintuitive, if you make it work with your background, colored ribbons can make a massive difference.
It’s another way of garnering attention at the right place.
In Conclusion
It’s no secret that YouTube thumbnail fonts play a huge role in making your YouTube videos successful. You might learn about the best video format for YouTube, use a YouTube name generator to think of a great channel name, and customize your channel, but you also need to focus on what fonts you use.
The good thing is that Pixelied makes it extremely easy to make YouTube thumbnails using their editor. You can not only design a thumbnail according to your needs, but you can also choose from a massive library of free fonts. Most of the fonts above are available on Pixelied, but if you want to upload a custom font, you can do that too.
When you’ve decided on your YouTube thumbnail fonts, all you have to do is go to Pixelied’s editor and make your video thumbnails.
