Video Game Archaeology

fridgeboy

Hey don’t forget to like and subscribe and share with anyone you think might be interested!

Holy shit that feels gross to type.

captain

fridgeboy lol I was going to say I smashed that like button and hit subscribe earlier but it felt too gross

fridgeboy

captain Smash em!!

fridgeboy

As always if anyone has any suggestions to improve I’m happy to hear them. Today’s project is to try and make stronger thumbnails, which is apparently quite important.

yeso

fridgeboy Maybe I missed this, but are you introducing your own name or handle during the videos? I think you should give the audience a name rather than just be the video game archeology guy

Syzygy

It is for “growing your audience”, though frankly the boilerplate thumbnail style effective on youtube is disgusting and I always hate to see a good channel go down that road for the sake of chasing numbers.

rejj

That said, seeing CidNight doing the Surprised Shouty Face™ at a piece of architecture would be pretty amusing

fridgeboy

@Syzygy rejj
If it makes you feel better, I was thinking more along the lines of nice, clean, branded thumbnail like Tim Rogers’s’s’s’ Action Button Reviews, rather than the human cut out googly eyeing in front of a castle.

Syzygy

lol, mixed feelings

But reminds me of my favorite use of the clownface, by the channel of TNT Amusements, an arcade game reseller run by a middle-aged Pennsylvania / Jersey guy who only sometimes tries to live up to the stereotype with charmingly goofy results

Syzygy

To be honest I also find Tim’s over the line! But I am really not the average consumer on this, it’s shown time and again to work.

kory

My favorite thumbnails are the simple, classy, easily recognizable ones that also clearly indicate the topic to be covered. Basically, something that will grab my attention and tell my brain “Hey! A new video from that channel I love! I will enjoy watching this and this is what I will be learning about today!” At some point the reaction really becomes almost subconscious–see 8-bit music theory, DF Retro, LGR/LGR thrifts. A good channel plus a distinctive font or color choice really just directly stimulates my lizard brain (can’t speak for the algorithm’s brain, though). The silly face trend is disheartening, but in your case I’ll allow it.

fridgeboy

kory

Here’s my crack at it

kory

fridgeboy Not bad! I like the classy, readable font and your concerned yet erudite physiognomy. I would suggest leaning into the color theming even more and maybe even putting a red border around the whole thing (same red as the numbersplat). Personally speaking, thumbnails with borders (see LGR) really stand out to me and also lend some brand cohesion.

fridgeboy

@kory

Thicker?

kory

fridgeboy Yeah, I think you can go thicker–also I’m pretty sure the thumbnails are 16:9 aspect ratio (can double check that) so you might need to rescale–maybe can move the splat to the upper right so its more balanced visually.

fridgeboy

You are absolutely right! I had just discovered that not long before you posted.

kory

Looking good! Really just minor things at this point, but I would still increase the red line weight all around (remember, people may be seeing these thumbails _very _small, and maybe add a black outline to the upper title to help separate it from the background.

fridgeboy

kory Thanks for the suggestions! I actually like tripled the line weight on the red both on the border the episode # and it looks a lot better. I’ll play around with the text too

Rather than spamming the thread with huge images, I’ve attached the final version above

kory

fridgeboy perfection!

fridgeboy

treefroggy

fridgeboy Best video so far! Back in the day when I was playing lots of Dark Souls and smoking weed, I’d have thoughts like “It’s all a metaphor for society, man”…………. Now there’s a video series describing why it was all along!

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