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Picture of a default YouTube channel
I’ve always been interested in designing layouts and themes for sites such as MySpace and YouTube. Clearly, it’s a bit too late to start designing MySpace themes, so I thought I’d try making a YouTube theme just for fun. With a screenshot of a plain YouTube channel, I fired up Photoshop and went to work.
Of course, YouTube only allows us to edit a few aspects of the design. We can change the background color, box colors, border colors, and link colors. The most powerful settings are the background settings. Of course, you can change the background color, but you can also use an image or a combination of both. Many profiles, such as the White House, use a large background image to create the illusion of a complex layout.
I decided to keep it simple for the first design. Take a look at the result.
See the horizontal thin border by the YouTube logo? That was achieved by creating a simple background image like this. The background image is so large because, while YouTube allows us to repeat background images, it does not let us choose which way to repeat it. For nearly everyone, 1600 pixels is more than wide enough. The light blue background is simply a solid color (#dcecfc) that fills the spaces the background image does not. The white round border in the default profile (by the YouTube logo) is gone since the background image is the same color (creating the illusion that it disappeared).
Want to create your own YouTube theme? Download the Photoshop template I’ve created. I’ve separated the background and a few elements of the design into separate layers. This will let you easily edit the colors by changing the layer background properties.
Did you create your own theme? Let me know! I’ll be sharing some themes as time goes on. Stay tuned for more…
Nice post, i need a new theme for my channel and il give this a go. Thanks