Shua is a 21-year-old designer from India. He started making thumbnails in 2022 when he launched his first gaming YouTube channel, and somewhere along the way he fell in love with YouTube. Right now he works with a few tech YouTubers, and also works part-time as somewhat of a creative director at an agency. Shua is available for hire.
Twitter (X) → x.com/shua_designs
Website → shuadesigns.com
Featured design
The Beginning of the End of Coding
Overview
Basically, I was seeing a lot of stuff online about vibe coding, and I stumbled upon this design on Pinterest.
Inspiration reference
I wanted to recreate something similar as a fun project, but with my own twist. So I took inspiration from it, made AI the main topic, and landed on the idea of doing a documentary about vibe coding. I came up with the title and started building the concept around that.
For the person in the design, I used a website called This Person Does Not Exist.
The composition was inspired by the original and was honestly pretty experimental. I was just moving things around, changing the size and placement of elements, until it started looking good and felt easy to read. There wasn't really a complicated process behind it.
Editing
Editing was pretty simple. I added the person first and just tried to make him pop.
Starting asset
Then I added all the AI logos, made them glow and added the reflections inside the glasses for a more realistic effect.
Logos + reflections
After that I improved the lighting, enhanced the reflections, threw on a broken glass and glitch overlay, and finished everything off with a Camera Raw filter.
Final thumbnail
Unlayered
Workstation
MacBook M5 Air
1TB storage, 24 GB RAM
A notepad
A Logitech M650 mouse (not in the image)
Tools
Communication: X, Discord, and Slack
File sharing: Google Drive
Design: Photoshop
AI: ChatGPT and Claude
Image generation: Grok (yeah, I know, but it's free with my X subscription)
What do you enjoy most about making thumbnails?
Probably the psychology, the problem-solving, and just the novelty of it. Every video is different, so you're always trying to figure out a new way to solve it.
What makes a thumbnail stand out, in your opinion?
IMO, its ability to make you stop the scroll. Yes, sometimes that's just those "red arrows" haha, but it can also be something you've genuinely never seen on the feed before. Anything that breaks the pattern and makes you stop.
What's changed most in how you work this past year?
I realised design is psychology, but making stuff look good is just as important as the idea itself. I used to be super focused on the psychology and making thumbnails "YouTube-optimized", and kind of forgot to actually get better at design.
Best thumbnail you've ever made?
I know this isn't the most YouTube-optimized thumbnail I've ever made, but at the end of the day a thumbnail is supposed to make you stop — and honestly, I think this does that better than any of my other work.
I'm super proud of this one, especially the amount of detail that went into it. It was one of those designs where I kept zooming in and adding little things until the whole piece felt like something worth looking at beyond just a YouTube thumbnail.
Even the client said it belonged in the Louvre, so I'll take that lol.
All of Computer Science in 7 Hours
Best thumbnail you've ever seen?
This is peak thumbnail design IMO. It ticks every box: it stops you, makes you curious, stands out in the YouTube feed, and most importantly, it hurts not to click on it.
This Is Not Yellow // Vsauce
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