Joseph Blaze is a digital designer specializing in YouTube thumbnails since 2018. He’s created thousands of thumbnails for all sorts of video niches and worked with 150+ channels, helping improve their thumbnail game — no matter if they have 20K or 20M subs. He also loves running projects that help other thumbnail designers grow, one of them being Unlayered.
YouTube → youtube.com/@josephblaze
Twitter (X) → x.com/thejosephblaze
Instagram → instagram.com/thejosephblaze
Featured Design
Brief
Arun with boxes, simple thumbnail; make the boxes cool and exciting, using some green and white to represent “cheap” while keeping the colors balanced and vibrant. Add a dollar note to Arun’s hand.
Inspiration
The main inspiration for this thumbnail came from previous ones made for similar video formats, which guarantee millions of views every time.
Editing Process
Since the starting asset is already close to the final composition, most of the editing effort went into refining the product box covers and experimenting with different designs/colors.
Asset Generation
Product shapes are drawn by hand to fit the composition, while product box covers are mainly generated with AI tools like ChatGPT and then refined to minimize text clutter.
Tools Used
Adobe Photoshop
ChatGPT
If you found this edition of Unlayered helpful, please consider sharing it with someone who might benefit from this workflow too! ❤️