Noam Reuven is a 17-year-old high school student who designs YouTube thumbnails. He has been using Photoshop for about 5 years and started focusing on IRL thumbnails a year ago. Since then, he’s been learning what makes thumbnails effective, experimenting with styles, and helping creators make their videos stand out. Noam is available for hire.
Twitter (X) → x.com/noamdesign2
Website → https://noamdesign.org
Discord → @noamdesign
Featured design
Brief
The concept is a giant tarantula lying on the grass while red ants attack and eat it from all sides. The spider is placed in the center, with ants swarming over its body and surrounding it to create a sense of chaos. The idea is to show a dramatic survival scene, where the ants look aggressive and overwhelming.
Reference
Concept sketch
Editing process
Build the base: I started by searching for a grassy background, then adjusted the colors so it wouldn’t look too artificial. I also removed a few messy elements to leave room for the main action later.
Add the ants: I generated an a AI fire ants and just kept duplicating them with little changes - different sizes, rotations, and angles, so it feels like a real chaotic swarm.
Spider setup: I added the spider in the middle, adjusted the shadows and highlights so it would sit naturally in the scene, and added a few scratches and bite marks to show that it was under attack.
Final touches: balanced the red/orange of the ants against the green grass, sharpened the spider’s textures, and blurred the background just slightly to give the whole thing depth. At the end I ran it through AI Upscaler to polish the details.
Workstation
Workstation Items
Main Monitor: LENOVO Legion R27fc-30 - 27 inch - 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) - 0.5 ms - 240 Hz
Side Monitor: Samsung 24" C24F390FH
Mouse: Razer Viper Mini
Keyboard: MK61
Headset: SteelSeries Arctis 7+
PC Specs
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-14600K
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z790-P Intel LGA1700 Z790 DDR5
RAM: 32 GB
Tools
1. What do you enjoy most about creating thumbnails?
What I enjoy most about making thumbnails is just the whole process of taking an idea and turning it into something that really pops. I like messing around with colors, lighting, and expressions until it feels right, but I also enjoy working with people a lot. Talking through ideas, getting feedback, and taking in the changes they ask for actually helps me to sometimes get better.
2. Where do you usually get inspiration for your thumbnails?
I usually get inspiration from YouTube. I look at a lot of other thumbnails to see what stands out and what’s trending. Sometimes I’ll scroll through Twitter too and pick up cool ideas or styles that might work. For me, it’s really about noticing what actually makes me want to click, and then using that as inspiration for my own designs.
3. What’s one tip you’d give to someone just starting out with thumbnail design?
My tip is honestly just to practice as much as you can. The more thumbnails you make, the more you start to see what looks good and what doesn’t. At first it might feel a bit messy, but over time you’ll get way better and it’ll start to feel natural.
If you found this edition of Unlayered helpful, please consider sharing it with someone who might benefit from this workflow too! 💙