‘Ello ‘ello, what’s going on ‘ere?
On the weekend I was given the amazing opportunity to attend one of YouTube’s creator days and it was great! Just the mere fact that I was surrounded by other YouTubers going through what I was going through was nice.
The day started off with food!! Starting any day off with food is always advantageous but when it’s pizza, well, that’s just damn excellent!
The day consisted of many talks on the many ways you could improve your channel, your discoverability, etc etc. And then we got to a section where we would look at some people’s channels and comment on what was good about it and what could be improved. This was a pivotal moment for me, because when I saw all those sparkling, shiny, perfect looking channels with their sparkling, shiny, perfect looking thumbnails and their sparkling, shiny, perfect looking titles, I felt inferior – I felt inferior for my channel.
To put it in simple terms, my channel looked shit
I looked at what I’d created and I wasn’t impressed. If I wasn’t, how would someone else who was just casually stopping by feel? It just looked so disjointed. There was no correlation between the different sections of my channel – I had one style of thumbnail for tutorials and another for my general sewing talks, basically, nothing that really said “This is an Elewa video”.
In the pictures above, I was playing around with different styles but I knew that I quite liked the collage look so I kept that throughout my thumbnail developmentation. These ones I liked but then I realised it was way too formal – I mean, why so serious? – and didn’t really give me the chance to be silly with my wording.
I really really really liked these ones! A lot! They were bold, colourful and I could mess around with my wording without putting any constraints on myself. Stuff propriety! But when I uploaded these new thumbnails, because of the 1001 different colours used, there was potential for colour clashes! Boo hoo! So I changed it again…
…to black!
Everything to black. Black is such a universally known colour that pretty much goes with everything, including itself. So I thought, why not? It’s definitely not as colourful as the above ones, but if I wanted a more uniform look, this was what I had to do!
I also realised my titles weren’t searchable
If you were new to pattern drafting or sewing, what would you search for? “how to draft a pattern?” or maybe something simpler like “how to make sewing patterns?”. This was where my next change came in. Can you believe that I didn’t even have the word sewing in any of my titles! How were sewists ever meant to find me? How was I even meant to rank highly in YouTube searches if YouTube didn’t even know what my channel was about at?!
So I renamed most of my videos where necessary; “Pattern Drafting Tutorial” became “Sewing Pattern Tutorial”. I also added “DIY Sewing Pattern” to my thumbnails to give further explanation of what the videos were about.
My new YouTube look
All in all I’ve made some massive changes and this is what my YouTube channel looks like now:
I’m actually not too sure if I like it (although I do think I’m slowly warming to it) and I’ll probably change it again, but for now, I think it’ll do the job that I need it to do! Wish me luck!
Let me know what you think about the new look, because at the end of the day, I’m not the only person who has to look at it. Do you think everything flows and complements one another? Can you tell what my channel is about at first glance? Which group of thumbnails do you prefer? Any advice? Any suggestions? Anything?!!! Let me know!!! 🙂
Heyy! You blew my mind! I was thinking to change smth too about the look of the channel..I don’t feel like it says – it’s me.. Such a great post!
You know I really love the colorful ones, they are so you!!! I have no idea how they will look all together side by side…but maybe for only talking videos you can choose black/white and when you present a specific garment you can go for colors? They are SOOO good!
oh..and maybe include the word drafting for drafting tutorials? smth like “Drafting Sewing Pattern Tutorial” or “Sewing Pattern / Drafting Tutorial” I dont know, but if I wanted to draft I would look for both words: sewing and drafting..
Thank for the post again, made me thinking :*
I’m glad you liked the post 😀
I think having a channel that represents who you are is a great way for people to initially get to know you. I think you should do it if you feel like the overall presentation won’t make people watch your other videos or subscribe.
I love the colourful ones too and I’m annoyed that I didn’t use them because they look amazing. I just felt that in some places, I had to many blues or too many greens and it didn’t really work. But you’re right, I could colour code my videos, that way, everything would still be uniform but divided in their sections.
Hahaha these titles get so long! I want to put drafting somewhere but maybe in the description? I’ve still got a lot to do to make the videos better, haha!
Good luck with your channel!! 😘
Thank you! Hope to find smething that really suits me soon)