Making hour-long finance interviews impossible to scroll past.
Ongoing thumbnail design and channel branding for Shaping Wealth, Brian Portnoy's behavioural finance channel, all built in one system.
- Client
- Shaping Wealth, behavioural finance
- Platform
- YouTube, long-form interviews
- Scope
- Thumbnails · Channel branding
- Engagement
- Managed end to end, ongoing
The hardest category on YouTube to make someone click.
Shaping Wealth, hosted by Brian Portnoy, publishes hour-long conversations about the psychology of money for financial advisers. The footage is two people talking, and the subjects are abstract. The thumbnail has to make the idea concrete without the exaggerated faces and arrows that would cost credibility.
Talking heads only
No b-roll. Every thumbnail is one portrait and type.
Abstract subjects
Time horizons and mental accounting have no obvious image. The hook carries them.
A sceptical audience
Advisers and CFAs tune out clickbait. The design must be bold, not cheap.
One clear idea per thumbnail, readable at phone size, on a serious channel about money.
Four rules every thumbnail follows.
The hook is not the episode title
Titles describe the conversation; thumbnails sell one idea from it, cut to a handful of words.
One highlight, doing one job
A red block sits behind the one word the idea turns on. Never more than one per design.
The guest is the anchor
Each guest is cut out, relit and placed on a background built for that episode.
Fixed furniture, variable interior
Watermark, host credit and name plate stay fixed while backgrounds, colour and type change.
One system, one channel.
Different guests and colours, all built on the same rules.
Six fixed parts, assembled every week.
- 1
Host credit
A microphone icon and the host's name, top left.
- 2
The hook
Three to six heavy words, stacked on two or three lines.
- 3
Red highlight
One block behind the operative word, where the eye lands first.
- 4
Cut-out portrait
Guest masked, relit and edged to stand off the background.
- 5
Guest name plate
Credited in a fixed lower position, never buried.
- 6
Channel watermark
Logo locked top right at the same size and opacity.
Consistent, without being repetitive.
Accent variation
Selected episodes move off red into green or teal to break up long runs.
Data as background
Market episodes get a light chart-paper background with financial iconography.
The quote card
The hook framed as a social post, for episodes built on a guest's known argument.
Editorial and print cues
Torn paper and newsprint for episodes about findings rather than opinion.
The channel is the asset, not the upload.
- Step 01
Episode brief
Guest, topic and the one argument to pull out.
- Step 02
Hook options
Several angles written before design.
- Step 03
Portrait prep
Frame selected, guest cut out, relit and edged.
- Step 04
Build + variants
Built in-system, with alternates where useful.
- Step 05
Scale test
Checked at phone size and against neighbouring uploads.
Standards on every piece
- 1280 × 720, under 2MB
- Hook legible at 210px wide
- One highlight block only
- Watermark top right, fixed
- Guest always credited
- No text in the lower right
- Contrast checked against neighbours
- Title and thumbnail never duplicate wording
An ongoing design engagement, not a one-off.
Thumbnail design
Every episode, delivered upload-ready.
Hook copywriting
On-image copy drawn from the episode.
Photo editing
Cut-outs, relighting and colour matching.
Background design
A custom background per episode.
Channel branding
Watermark, credits, banner and profile.
Playlist and section art
Cover art matching the thumbnails.
Grid management
The channel page reviewed as a whole.
Variants on request
Alternates for testing or repurposing.
Weekly
Delivered alongside the publishing schedule
1 system
Fixed rules that keep the channel page coherent
End to end
Brief, copy, editing, design and delivery
Content, design and video we've made.
Need thumbnails that hold up at phone size?
Get a quote. Soft click-through or a messy channel page is a system problem, and it's fixable.
Real results for founders in the UK, US, Europe & Pakistan