Customized YouTube Watermark

I designed a custom YouTube watermark for my second channel, Aleyna St. Bridget - Music, Comedy, & Writing. I wanted to make it accessible and unique.

Situation & Task

I needed a watermark and wanted to make it myself. I noticed a lot of YouTube channels use a “Subscribe” .png as their watermark and it is there for the entire video.

Challenges

I wanted to create a unique design with high accessibility. It was important for the customized aspect to feel light and not overtake the design. The focus still had to be the word “Subscribe”, however the artistic twist needed to be noticeable and not distracting. Additionally, the overall watermark had to be coherent with my channel’s purpose and content, and also be compatible and aligned with my branding aesthetic.

I started with an idea for a figure sitting on the top of the “Subscribe” box’s border. However, this took too much space and attention away from the call to action. I shifted to an idea of creating a keyboard that would be across the top of the rectangle. I thought it would be cool, because the background I chose is orange (aligned with my warm brand) and because it beckons back to vintage synth keyboards in all their pretty colors.

After trying different heights for the keys against the background, I decided it looked best for the keys to stretch across the mid length of the “keyboard'“, and to make them reasonably long so as to stand out and mimic realism.

Result

• I successfully designed a customized watermark .png for my YouTube channel.

• The final watermark is (I like to think) charming and suitable in purpose to my channel.

What I Learned

• Designing with Intuition: Instead of trying too hard, I went with my gut feeling from the start. I knew I wanted an orange background. I knew there would be some artistic twist on a traditional Subscribe button design. And I quickly realized I wanted it to be referential to old synth keyboards.

• Being open to making mistakes: It’s really easy as an artist to get caught up in an idea, work on it for too long, and then realize it was the wrong idea to begin with. For me, I think I’ve been learning that we can work with our “side quests” and see them more as opportunities to branch off and innovate something we never would have thought of without going off roads for a bit. I believe my level of comfort with that is improving the more projects I complete.