[Practical 10 Steps] I Tried Making a note Thumbnail with a Canva Template | Light Color x White Space Design

The story of how I decided to make a thumbnail

I have a rather lazy personality, so until now, I've just been creating thumbnails for my note articles using AI generation.

However, while reading other people's articles, I came across content saying,

AI-generated thumbnails get buried

that kind of content.

Ah, that's true, many people are using AI to make thumbnails these days.

I thought that, so I went to look at articles about note thumbnails and searched for terms similar to my content genre to see how many people were using non-AI-generated thumbnails.
The search results were,

The search results were,

a long, long list of thumbnails that appeared to be AI-generated!

Well, that was expected. After all, I'm making thumbnails with AI generation too.

Looking closely, rather than just being AI-generated, everyone was generating them in a style that matched their originality. It was fun to see that even with AI, people were thinking about their own personality or what kind of image would be good.

In particular, recent AI-generated images are well-composed and easy to see, so it didn't seem like articles were being ignored just because they used AI images.

That said, at the end of the day,

you can tell at a glance that this is an AI-generated thumbnail.

And among the rows of AI-generated thumbnails, I did feel that thumbnails that weren't AI-generated—like photos or simple illustrations—actually caught my eye more.

Personally, I love minimalist designs and animal photos, so there's a chance that's why they caught my eye, but still,

since I'm a web designer (a beginner),

now that I finally have some time to settle down and focus,

I decided to try making a thumbnail myself.Why I used a template

First, when I thought about making a thumbnail from scratch, I naturally went to look for references to see what kind of thumbnails everyone else is using.

And, as I mentioned earlier, the search results were just a long line of AI-generated thumbnails.

So then I thought, where should I look for references?

I decided to check out Canva's templates for the time being.

Then, oh, I've seen these before! A whole row of templates appeared.

There were so many templates that I used to see often, back before everyone started using AI-generated thumbnails.

Nostalgic.

While looking at those templates, I decided to start making a simple thumbnail with plenty of white space.

A few minutes later...

The rough draft I finished ended up being almost identical to one of the structures I saw in the templates.

Hmm.

Well then, I guess I'll just use a template.

I haven't really learned design properly yet, anyway. Right?

And so, I ended up using a template without much fuss.

B-but, there was such a minimal, simple, and cute template!

I just had to use it!

Introduction to the thumbnail I made this time

Yes, and the thumbnails I made this time are as follows.

Something like this.

These are thumbnails from previous articles that I recreated using the template.

Without breaking the basic framework of the template, I hope to unify them in the future, like a series, or something that people will associate with me.

Production Flow

In case anyone is curious or thinks, 'I'd like to try using Canva templates too,' I'll write down the rough production flow.

As long as you have Canva, you can find your favorites if you look for templates, even in the free version, so please take a look.

[Update]
I captured these entirely on a PC because that's what I use, but you should be able to do it in a similar way on the smartphone version too!
But if you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will answer!

1. First, open Canva and select 'Templates' from the list on the left.
2. Enter 'note thumbnail' in the search box and press the Enter key.
3. Search results (a list of templates) will be displayed.
4. Click on a template that you like and want to use.
(Note: Templates with a crown icon 👑 in the bottom right are for use with the paid plan. If you are on the free plan, please patiently look for templates without the 👑 icon.)

Let's use this template this time.

5. Click 'Customize this template'.

6. Replace the title and supplementary text (subtitle) to match your article.

7. Once you've changed the text, click the 'Share' button near the top right of the screen.
8. Click 'Download'.

9. Keep the file type as PNG format and click 'Download'.

10. Select the folder where you want to save the image and click 'Save' to complete!

Wow, it can be done in 10 steps!

Ta-da!
It turned out like this.

It's easy, so please give it a try.

Future plans

Once my design skills improve at design school, I'm thinking of creating my own thumbnails for note and making templates as well.

I would be happy if those who are interested come back to check it out.

Thank you for reading until the end!

Including making thumbnails for note, I want to continue enjoying design even more from now on.

See you later.