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"2024 Approved Six Offbeat Sources for Customized Video Theme Elements"
Six Offbeat Sources for Customized Video Theme Elements
6 Completely Different Places to Get Icons and Logos for YouTube Videos
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
Whether you need YouTube icons and logos to use as pop-up graphics in your videos, to serve as your channel icon, to use as watermarks, or to liven up your channel art or video thumbnails – don’t worry. There are lots of places to get them.
We’ve made a list of 6 sites where you can download icons and logos for free for YouTub videos, and explained how they work.
You might also want to check out these YouTube channels offering free profile picture templates .
1. Flaticon.com
Key Points:
- Great selection of icons/logos
- It’s easy to change the colors before you download
I’m putting Flaticon.com right at the top of this list because it has something that really sets it apart from the other sites on this list – it lets you edit pre-made icons before you download them.
You start out on Flaticon by searching for a theme like beauty, gaming, flowers, or emojis. I searched for ‘birds’ and found these cuties.
These aren’t all the birds on Flaticon, just a few. They had a huge selection in all the different searches I tried.
I clicked on the brown bird to open up the download screen, and then clicked into ‘Edit icon’. There may be a pop up that tells you editing tools are only available to registered users, but it’s wrong. Just close it and keep going, unless you want to register.
You can edit the colors in your icon just by clicking on the color you want to replace, and then clicking on the color in the color selector you want to replace it with. I made my birdie FLY.
I never apologize for puns.
Once you like the look of your icon, just click Download. You will be prompted to choose a format. PNG is the most popular because it is supported the most places (including on YouTube), and because it allows for a transparent background.
After clicking on a format you will also be prompted to choose a size for your image. It’s always best to go with the largest image you can – its way easier to shrink things and keep them looking good than it is to have to enlarge them.
Flaticon has a great selection, it’s free, and they make it really easy to edit your creations. I would strongly recommend this site to anyone in the market for an icon or logo.
Flaticon asks that you include an “Icon made by [author link] from <www.flaticon.com> ” somewhere (i.e. video description, channel ‘about’ section) when you use their icons for free.
2. Freepik.com
Key Points:
- Good selection of icons.
- No way to customise them on the site.
- Attribution requried.
On freepik, you start off by searching for a theme (like the genre of your YouTube title or the topic of a video, i.e. ‘makeup’ or ‘music’). I searched for ‘cat’.
A few of the sets available on freepik. The crown icon means you need to be a paying Premium member, but most things are free.
You can’t edit on freepik, and in order to download for free you need to include an attribution/credit to freepik where you use the images.
You do not choose what format to download your images in on freepik. When you hit ‘Free Download’ it will automatically download a zip file which will contain both a .jpg and a .eps. The EPS is editable in any ‘vector graphics editor’, like Adobe Illustrator, and YouTube supports .jpg files.
3. Seeklogo.net
Key Points:
- Logos from major brands
- Great for channels that do product reviews
Seeklogo.net has a slightly more corporate slant than some of the other sites on this list. It has logos for a lot of major companies and brands available for download.
In the ‘search’ on Seeklogo.net, you can type in the name of a brand or industry and see if the well-known logo you’re looking for is available. This may be especially useful for people with sports related channels since they have a lot of logos for major teams.
I searched for YouTube – you never know when you might need the YouTube logo.
Although the site does not advertise PNG in the list of formats on their front page, downloads do include PNG versions (which is useful if you need transparency and don’t have a program which can edit vector files, like .eps).
4. IconArchive.com
Key Points:
- Site has an office/business slant.
- Detailed search tool lets you sort by color, theme, etc.
IconArchive has a huge selection of icons with somewhat of an office/business slant. I searched for ‘flower’ and half the results were of file-folders with flowers on them.
Could be cool for a lifestyle video about school or work?
My favorite thing about IconArchive is its search features. It allows you to filter results by color, size (down to the specific resolution), category, background color, style, and a lot more.
Color is under ‘Display’, meaning that it won’t filter out results that have different colors it’ll just list the color you select first.
The ‘Category’ filter is useful because there are some genres you probably recognize there, like ‘Lifestyle’. However, you should be careful not to over-filter. This site is pretty literal in how it categorizes. For example – there are no ‘flower’ images under ‘Lifestyle’.
Downloads are available in different sizes and formats including PNG. PNG is always a good option because it is supported by YouTube and includes transparent backgrounds.
Note that all of your different download buttons will be located underneath your image. They favor those ads that look like ‘download’ or ‘start now’ buttons, and the ads sit right next to the images on the right, so it’s easy to get confused and click on the ad.
5. Logaster.com
Key Points:
- You’ll have to pay for larger images.
- Focused more on businesses.
- Incorporates your channel name.
Logaster is really a service for businesses – they make and sell business cards, letterheads, and other office-y things like that. However, they are still a good choice for YouTubers because they have a free logo creator. Sort of.
You actually have to pay $9.99 to get larger images and remove the watermark, but the process is free.
When you arrive on Logaster there’s a button right on their home page that says ‘Create a logo for free’. Click on it.
In Step 1 it’ll ask for your company name and an activity type. You just need to put in your channel name and choose something from the activity drop down that you focus on in your videos.
My heart burns with the secret desire to be YouTube’s Neil Degrasse Tyson (it doesn’t really, but he is super cool) so I tried ‘Katie Does Science’ and ‘Science, Studies, Education’. Here’s what it came up with:
There are 10 pages of suggestions!
You can see how, unless you have a short channel name, you’re probably not going to be able to use any of these as an icon, but a lot of them would look cool on a banner. There’s an ‘Edit Logo Concept’ button which allows you to make changes to the layout, but you can still only choose from preset layouts. For example, some logo concepts allow you to choose whether the icon is above your text or next to it.
After you click ‘save’ in the last step you’ll be prompted to provide an email address and password. Once you sign in, you’ll be able to download a small logo for free, or purchase the higher resolution image.
I personally wouldn’t recommend buying an image from here unless your channel is for your small business and you need things like branded business cards and letterhead. This site might be better for gathering inspiration than actually downloading a logo from.
6. Icons8.com
Key Points:
- You need to link back to them to use their icons.
- You can edit the colors on the site and even add details.
- There’s a size limit on the free service (100x100px)
At Icons8 they have free and paid services. If you download an icon for free it will be a PNG file (which should be fine, YouTube supports PNG and it’s good for transparency) that is no larger than 100x100px. This is not ideal since YouTube recommends 800x800px for profile pictures, but it’s not necessarily a deal breaker either. Profile pictures render down to much smaller than that.
You will also need to link to Icons8 if you use their icons for free (i.e. in the ‘about’ section of your channel page).
To get started on Icons8, type something into the search bar on the home page that you think might work as an icon or as part of whatever graphics you have planned. I typed in ‘game’ for this one, since gaming is the biggest genre on YouTube. Here are a few of the results that came up:
Lower down in the results there were different kinds of sports balls, hand-held gaming systems, playing cards, joy sticks, baseball caps and more.
After you find an icon you like, click on it and it will appear on the right side of your screen where you’ll be able to make a few changes (an editing screen will pop up once you start clicking on things). You can edit your colors, overlay small decals, add text, and add a border, change your background and adjust your size. Here’s the editing screen:
You can give your icon a pretty different look from its default. Check this out:
You cannot download your icon from the editing screen. You need to click Save, and then download it from the main display screen here:
You can change the size with that drop down menu, but you’ll be limited in your options if you don’t want to pay.
I downloaded my image and tried to see how it would look as an icon/profile picture. As you can see, it was pretty blurry in the preview:
However, the preview is larger than the actual profile picture. Once I set it, it looked alright.
Looking for somewhere you can build your own icon/logo from scratch? Check out this list of logo makers .
After downloading the icons or logos, it is time to add them to your YouTube video. Here I recommend our Wondershare Filmora video editor . Below is a video tutorial about how to add a logo to video in Filmora . Remember to download the free trial version to test.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
Whether you need YouTube icons and logos to use as pop-up graphics in your videos, to serve as your channel icon, to use as watermarks, or to liven up your channel art or video thumbnails – don’t worry. There are lots of places to get them.
We’ve made a list of 6 sites where you can download icons and logos for free for YouTub videos, and explained how they work.
You might also want to check out these YouTube channels offering free profile picture templates .
1. Flaticon.com
Key Points:
- Great selection of icons/logos
- It’s easy to change the colors before you download
I’m putting Flaticon.com right at the top of this list because it has something that really sets it apart from the other sites on this list – it lets you edit pre-made icons before you download them.
You start out on Flaticon by searching for a theme like beauty, gaming, flowers, or emojis. I searched for ‘birds’ and found these cuties.
These aren’t all the birds on Flaticon, just a few. They had a huge selection in all the different searches I tried.
I clicked on the brown bird to open up the download screen, and then clicked into ‘Edit icon’. There may be a pop up that tells you editing tools are only available to registered users, but it’s wrong. Just close it and keep going, unless you want to register.
You can edit the colors in your icon just by clicking on the color you want to replace, and then clicking on the color in the color selector you want to replace it with. I made my birdie FLY.
I never apologize for puns.
Once you like the look of your icon, just click Download. You will be prompted to choose a format. PNG is the most popular because it is supported the most places (including on YouTube), and because it allows for a transparent background.
After clicking on a format you will also be prompted to choose a size for your image. It’s always best to go with the largest image you can – its way easier to shrink things and keep them looking good than it is to have to enlarge them.
Flaticon has a great selection, it’s free, and they make it really easy to edit your creations. I would strongly recommend this site to anyone in the market for an icon or logo.
Flaticon asks that you include an “Icon made by [author link] from <www.flaticon.com> ” somewhere (i.e. video description, channel ‘about’ section) when you use their icons for free.
2. Freepik.com
Key Points:
- Good selection of icons.
- No way to customise them on the site.
- Attribution requried.
On freepik, you start off by searching for a theme (like the genre of your YouTube title or the topic of a video, i.e. ‘makeup’ or ‘music’). I searched for ‘cat’.
A few of the sets available on freepik. The crown icon means you need to be a paying Premium member, but most things are free.
You can’t edit on freepik, and in order to download for free you need to include an attribution/credit to freepik where you use the images.
You do not choose what format to download your images in on freepik. When you hit ‘Free Download’ it will automatically download a zip file which will contain both a .jpg and a .eps. The EPS is editable in any ‘vector graphics editor’, like Adobe Illustrator, and YouTube supports .jpg files.
3. Seeklogo.net
Key Points:
- Logos from major brands
- Great for channels that do product reviews
Seeklogo.net has a slightly more corporate slant than some of the other sites on this list. It has logos for a lot of major companies and brands available for download.
In the ‘search’ on Seeklogo.net, you can type in the name of a brand or industry and see if the well-known logo you’re looking for is available. This may be especially useful for people with sports related channels since they have a lot of logos for major teams.
I searched for YouTube – you never know when you might need the YouTube logo.
Although the site does not advertise PNG in the list of formats on their front page, downloads do include PNG versions (which is useful if you need transparency and don’t have a program which can edit vector files, like .eps).
4. IconArchive.com
Key Points:
- Site has an office/business slant.
- Detailed search tool lets you sort by color, theme, etc.
IconArchive has a huge selection of icons with somewhat of an office/business slant. I searched for ‘flower’ and half the results were of file-folders with flowers on them.
Could be cool for a lifestyle video about school or work?
My favorite thing about IconArchive is its search features. It allows you to filter results by color, size (down to the specific resolution), category, background color, style, and a lot more.
Color is under ‘Display’, meaning that it won’t filter out results that have different colors it’ll just list the color you select first.
The ‘Category’ filter is useful because there are some genres you probably recognize there, like ‘Lifestyle’. However, you should be careful not to over-filter. This site is pretty literal in how it categorizes. For example – there are no ‘flower’ images under ‘Lifestyle’.
Downloads are available in different sizes and formats including PNG. PNG is always a good option because it is supported by YouTube and includes transparent backgrounds.
Note that all of your different download buttons will be located underneath your image. They favor those ads that look like ‘download’ or ‘start now’ buttons, and the ads sit right next to the images on the right, so it’s easy to get confused and click on the ad.
5. Logaster.com
Key Points:
- You’ll have to pay for larger images.
- Focused more on businesses.
- Incorporates your channel name.
Logaster is really a service for businesses – they make and sell business cards, letterheads, and other office-y things like that. However, they are still a good choice for YouTubers because they have a free logo creator. Sort of.
You actually have to pay $9.99 to get larger images and remove the watermark, but the process is free.
When you arrive on Logaster there’s a button right on their home page that says ‘Create a logo for free’. Click on it.
In Step 1 it’ll ask for your company name and an activity type. You just need to put in your channel name and choose something from the activity drop down that you focus on in your videos.
My heart burns with the secret desire to be YouTube’s Neil Degrasse Tyson (it doesn’t really, but he is super cool) so I tried ‘Katie Does Science’ and ‘Science, Studies, Education’. Here’s what it came up with:
There are 10 pages of suggestions!
You can see how, unless you have a short channel name, you’re probably not going to be able to use any of these as an icon, but a lot of them would look cool on a banner. There’s an ‘Edit Logo Concept’ button which allows you to make changes to the layout, but you can still only choose from preset layouts. For example, some logo concepts allow you to choose whether the icon is above your text or next to it.
After you click ‘save’ in the last step you’ll be prompted to provide an email address and password. Once you sign in, you’ll be able to download a small logo for free, or purchase the higher resolution image.
I personally wouldn’t recommend buying an image from here unless your channel is for your small business and you need things like branded business cards and letterhead. This site might be better for gathering inspiration than actually downloading a logo from.
6. Icons8.com
Key Points:
- You need to link back to them to use their icons.
- You can edit the colors on the site and even add details.
- There’s a size limit on the free service (100x100px)
At Icons8 they have free and paid services. If you download an icon for free it will be a PNG file (which should be fine, YouTube supports PNG and it’s good for transparency) that is no larger than 100x100px. This is not ideal since YouTube recommends 800x800px for profile pictures, but it’s not necessarily a deal breaker either. Profile pictures render down to much smaller than that.
You will also need to link to Icons8 if you use their icons for free (i.e. in the ‘about’ section of your channel page).
To get started on Icons8, type something into the search bar on the home page that you think might work as an icon or as part of whatever graphics you have planned. I typed in ‘game’ for this one, since gaming is the biggest genre on YouTube. Here are a few of the results that came up:
Lower down in the results there were different kinds of sports balls, hand-held gaming systems, playing cards, joy sticks, baseball caps and more.
After you find an icon you like, click on it and it will appear on the right side of your screen where you’ll be able to make a few changes (an editing screen will pop up once you start clicking on things). You can edit your colors, overlay small decals, add text, and add a border, change your background and adjust your size. Here’s the editing screen:
You can give your icon a pretty different look from its default. Check this out:
You cannot download your icon from the editing screen. You need to click Save, and then download it from the main display screen here:
You can change the size with that drop down menu, but you’ll be limited in your options if you don’t want to pay.
I downloaded my image and tried to see how it would look as an icon/profile picture. As you can see, it was pretty blurry in the preview:
However, the preview is larger than the actual profile picture. Once I set it, it looked alright.
Looking for somewhere you can build your own icon/logo from scratch? Check out this list of logo makers .
After downloading the icons or logos, it is time to add them to your YouTube video. Here I recommend our Wondershare Filmora video editor . Below is a video tutorial about how to add a logo to video in Filmora . Remember to download the free trial version to test.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
Whether you need YouTube icons and logos to use as pop-up graphics in your videos, to serve as your channel icon, to use as watermarks, or to liven up your channel art or video thumbnails – don’t worry. There are lots of places to get them.
We’ve made a list of 6 sites where you can download icons and logos for free for YouTub videos, and explained how they work.
You might also want to check out these YouTube channels offering free profile picture templates .
1. Flaticon.com
Key Points:
- Great selection of icons/logos
- It’s easy to change the colors before you download
I’m putting Flaticon.com right at the top of this list because it has something that really sets it apart from the other sites on this list – it lets you edit pre-made icons before you download them.
You start out on Flaticon by searching for a theme like beauty, gaming, flowers, or emojis. I searched for ‘birds’ and found these cuties.
These aren’t all the birds on Flaticon, just a few. They had a huge selection in all the different searches I tried.
I clicked on the brown bird to open up the download screen, and then clicked into ‘Edit icon’. There may be a pop up that tells you editing tools are only available to registered users, but it’s wrong. Just close it and keep going, unless you want to register.
You can edit the colors in your icon just by clicking on the color you want to replace, and then clicking on the color in the color selector you want to replace it with. I made my birdie FLY.
I never apologize for puns.
Once you like the look of your icon, just click Download. You will be prompted to choose a format. PNG is the most popular because it is supported the most places (including on YouTube), and because it allows for a transparent background.
After clicking on a format you will also be prompted to choose a size for your image. It’s always best to go with the largest image you can – its way easier to shrink things and keep them looking good than it is to have to enlarge them.
Flaticon has a great selection, it’s free, and they make it really easy to edit your creations. I would strongly recommend this site to anyone in the market for an icon or logo.
Flaticon asks that you include an “Icon made by [author link] from <www.flaticon.com> ” somewhere (i.e. video description, channel ‘about’ section) when you use their icons for free.
2. Freepik.com
Key Points:
- Good selection of icons.
- No way to customise them on the site.
- Attribution requried.
On freepik, you start off by searching for a theme (like the genre of your YouTube title or the topic of a video, i.e. ‘makeup’ or ‘music’). I searched for ‘cat’.
A few of the sets available on freepik. The crown icon means you need to be a paying Premium member, but most things are free.
You can’t edit on freepik, and in order to download for free you need to include an attribution/credit to freepik where you use the images.
You do not choose what format to download your images in on freepik. When you hit ‘Free Download’ it will automatically download a zip file which will contain both a .jpg and a .eps. The EPS is editable in any ‘vector graphics editor’, like Adobe Illustrator, and YouTube supports .jpg files.
3. Seeklogo.net
Key Points:
- Logos from major brands
- Great for channels that do product reviews
Seeklogo.net has a slightly more corporate slant than some of the other sites on this list. It has logos for a lot of major companies and brands available for download.
In the ‘search’ on Seeklogo.net, you can type in the name of a brand or industry and see if the well-known logo you’re looking for is available. This may be especially useful for people with sports related channels since they have a lot of logos for major teams.
I searched for YouTube – you never know when you might need the YouTube logo.
Although the site does not advertise PNG in the list of formats on their front page, downloads do include PNG versions (which is useful if you need transparency and don’t have a program which can edit vector files, like .eps).
4. IconArchive.com
Key Points:
- Site has an office/business slant.
- Detailed search tool lets you sort by color, theme, etc.
IconArchive has a huge selection of icons with somewhat of an office/business slant. I searched for ‘flower’ and half the results were of file-folders with flowers on them.
Could be cool for a lifestyle video about school or work?
My favorite thing about IconArchive is its search features. It allows you to filter results by color, size (down to the specific resolution), category, background color, style, and a lot more.
Color is under ‘Display’, meaning that it won’t filter out results that have different colors it’ll just list the color you select first.
The ‘Category’ filter is useful because there are some genres you probably recognize there, like ‘Lifestyle’. However, you should be careful not to over-filter. This site is pretty literal in how it categorizes. For example – there are no ‘flower’ images under ‘Lifestyle’.
Downloads are available in different sizes and formats including PNG. PNG is always a good option because it is supported by YouTube and includes transparent backgrounds.
Note that all of your different download buttons will be located underneath your image. They favor those ads that look like ‘download’ or ‘start now’ buttons, and the ads sit right next to the images on the right, so it’s easy to get confused and click on the ad.
5. Logaster.com
Key Points:
- You’ll have to pay for larger images.
- Focused more on businesses.
- Incorporates your channel name.
Logaster is really a service for businesses – they make and sell business cards, letterheads, and other office-y things like that. However, they are still a good choice for YouTubers because they have a free logo creator. Sort of.
You actually have to pay $9.99 to get larger images and remove the watermark, but the process is free.
When you arrive on Logaster there’s a button right on their home page that says ‘Create a logo for free’. Click on it.
In Step 1 it’ll ask for your company name and an activity type. You just need to put in your channel name and choose something from the activity drop down that you focus on in your videos.
My heart burns with the secret desire to be YouTube’s Neil Degrasse Tyson (it doesn’t really, but he is super cool) so I tried ‘Katie Does Science’ and ‘Science, Studies, Education’. Here’s what it came up with:
There are 10 pages of suggestions!
You can see how, unless you have a short channel name, you’re probably not going to be able to use any of these as an icon, but a lot of them would look cool on a banner. There’s an ‘Edit Logo Concept’ button which allows you to make changes to the layout, but you can still only choose from preset layouts. For example, some logo concepts allow you to choose whether the icon is above your text or next to it.
After you click ‘save’ in the last step you’ll be prompted to provide an email address and password. Once you sign in, you’ll be able to download a small logo for free, or purchase the higher resolution image.
I personally wouldn’t recommend buying an image from here unless your channel is for your small business and you need things like branded business cards and letterhead. This site might be better for gathering inspiration than actually downloading a logo from.
6. Icons8.com
Key Points:
- You need to link back to them to use their icons.
- You can edit the colors on the site and even add details.
- There’s a size limit on the free service (100x100px)
At Icons8 they have free and paid services. If you download an icon for free it will be a PNG file (which should be fine, YouTube supports PNG and it’s good for transparency) that is no larger than 100x100px. This is not ideal since YouTube recommends 800x800px for profile pictures, but it’s not necessarily a deal breaker either. Profile pictures render down to much smaller than that.
You will also need to link to Icons8 if you use their icons for free (i.e. in the ‘about’ section of your channel page).
To get started on Icons8, type something into the search bar on the home page that you think might work as an icon or as part of whatever graphics you have planned. I typed in ‘game’ for this one, since gaming is the biggest genre on YouTube. Here are a few of the results that came up:
Lower down in the results there were different kinds of sports balls, hand-held gaming systems, playing cards, joy sticks, baseball caps and more.
After you find an icon you like, click on it and it will appear on the right side of your screen where you’ll be able to make a few changes (an editing screen will pop up once you start clicking on things). You can edit your colors, overlay small decals, add text, and add a border, change your background and adjust your size. Here’s the editing screen:
You can give your icon a pretty different look from its default. Check this out:
You cannot download your icon from the editing screen. You need to click Save, and then download it from the main display screen here:
You can change the size with that drop down menu, but you’ll be limited in your options if you don’t want to pay.
I downloaded my image and tried to see how it would look as an icon/profile picture. As you can see, it was pretty blurry in the preview:
However, the preview is larger than the actual profile picture. Once I set it, it looked alright.
Looking for somewhere you can build your own icon/logo from scratch? Check out this list of logo makers .
After downloading the icons or logos, it is time to add them to your YouTube video. Here I recommend our Wondershare Filmora video editor . Below is a video tutorial about how to add a logo to video in Filmora . Remember to download the free trial version to test.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
Whether you need YouTube icons and logos to use as pop-up graphics in your videos, to serve as your channel icon, to use as watermarks, or to liven up your channel art or video thumbnails – don’t worry. There are lots of places to get them.
We’ve made a list of 6 sites where you can download icons and logos for free for YouTub videos, and explained how they work.
You might also want to check out these YouTube channels offering free profile picture templates .
1. Flaticon.com
Key Points:
- Great selection of icons/logos
- It’s easy to change the colors before you download
I’m putting Flaticon.com right at the top of this list because it has something that really sets it apart from the other sites on this list – it lets you edit pre-made icons before you download them.
You start out on Flaticon by searching for a theme like beauty, gaming, flowers, or emojis. I searched for ‘birds’ and found these cuties.
These aren’t all the birds on Flaticon, just a few. They had a huge selection in all the different searches I tried.
I clicked on the brown bird to open up the download screen, and then clicked into ‘Edit icon’. There may be a pop up that tells you editing tools are only available to registered users, but it’s wrong. Just close it and keep going, unless you want to register.
You can edit the colors in your icon just by clicking on the color you want to replace, and then clicking on the color in the color selector you want to replace it with. I made my birdie FLY.
I never apologize for puns.
Once you like the look of your icon, just click Download. You will be prompted to choose a format. PNG is the most popular because it is supported the most places (including on YouTube), and because it allows for a transparent background.
After clicking on a format you will also be prompted to choose a size for your image. It’s always best to go with the largest image you can – its way easier to shrink things and keep them looking good than it is to have to enlarge them.
Flaticon has a great selection, it’s free, and they make it really easy to edit your creations. I would strongly recommend this site to anyone in the market for an icon or logo.
Flaticon asks that you include an “Icon made by [author link] from <www.flaticon.com> ” somewhere (i.e. video description, channel ‘about’ section) when you use their icons for free.
2. Freepik.com
Key Points:
- Good selection of icons.
- No way to customise them on the site.
- Attribution requried.
On freepik, you start off by searching for a theme (like the genre of your YouTube title or the topic of a video, i.e. ‘makeup’ or ‘music’). I searched for ‘cat’.
A few of the sets available on freepik. The crown icon means you need to be a paying Premium member, but most things are free.
You can’t edit on freepik, and in order to download for free you need to include an attribution/credit to freepik where you use the images.
You do not choose what format to download your images in on freepik. When you hit ‘Free Download’ it will automatically download a zip file which will contain both a .jpg and a .eps. The EPS is editable in any ‘vector graphics editor’, like Adobe Illustrator, and YouTube supports .jpg files.
3. Seeklogo.net
Key Points:
- Logos from major brands
- Great for channels that do product reviews
Seeklogo.net has a slightly more corporate slant than some of the other sites on this list. It has logos for a lot of major companies and brands available for download.
In the ‘search’ on Seeklogo.net, you can type in the name of a brand or industry and see if the well-known logo you’re looking for is available. This may be especially useful for people with sports related channels since they have a lot of logos for major teams.
I searched for YouTube – you never know when you might need the YouTube logo.
Although the site does not advertise PNG in the list of formats on their front page, downloads do include PNG versions (which is useful if you need transparency and don’t have a program which can edit vector files, like .eps).
4. IconArchive.com
Key Points:
- Site has an office/business slant.
- Detailed search tool lets you sort by color, theme, etc.
IconArchive has a huge selection of icons with somewhat of an office/business slant. I searched for ‘flower’ and half the results were of file-folders with flowers on them.
Could be cool for a lifestyle video about school or work?
My favorite thing about IconArchive is its search features. It allows you to filter results by color, size (down to the specific resolution), category, background color, style, and a lot more.
Color is under ‘Display’, meaning that it won’t filter out results that have different colors it’ll just list the color you select first.
The ‘Category’ filter is useful because there are some genres you probably recognize there, like ‘Lifestyle’. However, you should be careful not to over-filter. This site is pretty literal in how it categorizes. For example – there are no ‘flower’ images under ‘Lifestyle’.
Downloads are available in different sizes and formats including PNG. PNG is always a good option because it is supported by YouTube and includes transparent backgrounds.
Note that all of your different download buttons will be located underneath your image. They favor those ads that look like ‘download’ or ‘start now’ buttons, and the ads sit right next to the images on the right, so it’s easy to get confused and click on the ad.
5. Logaster.com
Key Points:
- You’ll have to pay for larger images.
- Focused more on businesses.
- Incorporates your channel name.
Logaster is really a service for businesses – they make and sell business cards, letterheads, and other office-y things like that. However, they are still a good choice for YouTubers because they have a free logo creator. Sort of.
You actually have to pay $9.99 to get larger images and remove the watermark, but the process is free.
When you arrive on Logaster there’s a button right on their home page that says ‘Create a logo for free’. Click on it.
In Step 1 it’ll ask for your company name and an activity type. You just need to put in your channel name and choose something from the activity drop down that you focus on in your videos.
My heart burns with the secret desire to be YouTube’s Neil Degrasse Tyson (it doesn’t really, but he is super cool) so I tried ‘Katie Does Science’ and ‘Science, Studies, Education’. Here’s what it came up with:
There are 10 pages of suggestions!
You can see how, unless you have a short channel name, you’re probably not going to be able to use any of these as an icon, but a lot of them would look cool on a banner. There’s an ‘Edit Logo Concept’ button which allows you to make changes to the layout, but you can still only choose from preset layouts. For example, some logo concepts allow you to choose whether the icon is above your text or next to it.
After you click ‘save’ in the last step you’ll be prompted to provide an email address and password. Once you sign in, you’ll be able to download a small logo for free, or purchase the higher resolution image.
I personally wouldn’t recommend buying an image from here unless your channel is for your small business and you need things like branded business cards and letterhead. This site might be better for gathering inspiration than actually downloading a logo from.
6. Icons8.com
Key Points:
- You need to link back to them to use their icons.
- You can edit the colors on the site and even add details.
- There’s a size limit on the free service (100x100px)
At Icons8 they have free and paid services. If you download an icon for free it will be a PNG file (which should be fine, YouTube supports PNG and it’s good for transparency) that is no larger than 100x100px. This is not ideal since YouTube recommends 800x800px for profile pictures, but it’s not necessarily a deal breaker either. Profile pictures render down to much smaller than that.
You will also need to link to Icons8 if you use their icons for free (i.e. in the ‘about’ section of your channel page).
To get started on Icons8, type something into the search bar on the home page that you think might work as an icon or as part of whatever graphics you have planned. I typed in ‘game’ for this one, since gaming is the biggest genre on YouTube. Here are a few of the results that came up:
Lower down in the results there were different kinds of sports balls, hand-held gaming systems, playing cards, joy sticks, baseball caps and more.
After you find an icon you like, click on it and it will appear on the right side of your screen where you’ll be able to make a few changes (an editing screen will pop up once you start clicking on things). You can edit your colors, overlay small decals, add text, and add a border, change your background and adjust your size. Here’s the editing screen:
You can give your icon a pretty different look from its default. Check this out:
You cannot download your icon from the editing screen. You need to click Save, and then download it from the main display screen here:
You can change the size with that drop down menu, but you’ll be limited in your options if you don’t want to pay.
I downloaded my image and tried to see how it would look as an icon/profile picture. As you can see, it was pretty blurry in the preview:
However, the preview is larger than the actual profile picture. Once I set it, it looked alright.
Looking for somewhere you can build your own icon/logo from scratch? Check out this list of logo makers .
After downloading the icons or logos, it is time to add them to your YouTube video. Here I recommend our Wondershare Filmora video editor . Below is a video tutorial about how to add a logo to video in Filmora . Remember to download the free trial version to test.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
Transforming Doubt Into Action: Channeling Vlogger Excellence
8 Tips on How to Vlog Confidently Like Popular YouTubers
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
For most people, vlogging is not something that comes naturally. Like any skill, it takes practice to improve. When someone is good at vlogging, they make it look easy.
When we watch the most popular YouTubers, the traits that make them successful are often invisible, because we are so consumed by their vlog. In this article, I’ll highlight 8 tips from the most accomplished vloggers on the Internet, so that you can vlog confidently and make the best YouTube videos.
1. Be Authentic
People opt to watch vlogs because they want to see something real.
Vlogging is about honesty, telling a story that is truthful and showing your personality. The most popular vloggers are likable because they don’t deceive the audience, they befriend them. Vloggers treat their audience with respect and that comes from being honest.
There will be an urge for you to mimic other vloggers, talking and acting the way they do, but savvy YouTube viewers will be able to see your faux personality pretty quickly.
Don’t focus on your image, but instead focus on your voice. What makes you different? That is how you will build a proper reputation.
2. Tell A Story
A vlog is not an assortment of footage haphazardly put together. A successful vlog must have a story: a conflict told with a beginning, middle, and end.
When you are casually telling a story to a friend, you are not thinking about the structure or the plot. You are focused on what happened and you want to communicate it as accurately as you can. While vlogging, you should approach it much the same way. Ad-libbing is fine. Stumbling is fine. Going back and repeating a part of the story is fine. By simply getting your story on camera, you now have all the pieces.
Once all the pieces of the story are captured — including your storytelling, b-roll, and other supportive footage — you must now cut out all the irrelevant or repetitive parts and edit it so it can be enjoyed as one cohesive tale.
Take a look at this example from Tiffany Alvord and notice how there are jump cuts both to skip information that can be assumed by the audience and add the tension to the story she’s telling.
3. Surprise and Delight Your Audience
There is a saying that a great ending to a story is that it is surprising, yet inevitable .
The ending needs to be justified even if there is a twist. Everything before that had worked to build up the tension and when it concludes it needs to be logical. However, the ending cannot be something that the audience can guess. Remember those mystery movies where you know who the murderer is after the first few scenes? Yeah… those aren’t satisfying. A good story ends with a surprise, and with everything prior leading up to it.
The gold standard example of a surprising, yet inevitable end is Casey Neistat’s bike lane video. Everything in the video is leading up to the end, but when you watch it the first time it’s unexpected, and that’s why it’s so good.
4. Be Inviting
A common trait of successful vloggers is that they are welcoming. They share their passion and encourage others to join in. Vlogging is about being a guide. It doesn’t matter if you are leading a tour of your home or showing your viewer an interesting new skill, it is important for you to approach the whole process with open arms.
Unlike being invited to a party, there is no obligation when it comes to YouTube. Your viewers can continue to live vicariously through you or they may be inspired by your experience and dare to try it themselves.
The opposite of inviting is rejecting, and when you are a vlogger, you don’t want to reject anyone from enjoying your videos.
5. Compose the Shot
Vlogging is a visual medium, and while the story is important, what is captured in the frame will play an impactful role in the video as well.
In a way, every vlogger needs to have a director’s eye for cinematography. I’m not saying that you need to be Wes Anderson to be an awesome vlogger, but knowing what is in the frame with you, the angle of the shot, the movement of the camera, and the quality of light will help the product look better.
The great thing about vlogging is that you will get a lot of practice framing shots, so I encourage you to learn the basics of video editing .
Check out this example from Rosanna Pansino , where she gives a tour of her bedroom.
The camera follows her fluidly throughout the video, but it is her eyes that guide both the camera moves and what she wants our attention to be directed to. Don’t hesitate to let the viewer know what you want them to see.
6. Be Prepared
While you can pick up a camera and start vlogging on the fly, being prepared enables you to produce the best video possible. Take a few minutes before you hit record simply to outline the key points you want to talk about and how the video will end, ensuring that after filming you haven’t forgotten a crucial part.
Additionally, knowing what to say makes you a better host for your vlog. Watch your favorite vlogger, I bet when they are speaking on camera, their speech is not littered with umms and ahhs…
Good preparation includes having all your gear ready for filming when you need it. There is nothing worse than being set to shoot and running out of battery or memory.
Take a look at Ashley Nichole in this vlog and notice that although she sounds spontaneous, it is also evident that she knows what she is going to talk about next.
7. Be Expressive
Remember those teachers that drone on and on, without adding any expression or passion to what they are lecturing? While they might have been perfectly suitable as teachers, they wouldn’t make good vloggers.
If you speak on camera in a monotone voice, you are not being expressive. Your facial and body language will match your lackluster performance. Even if you are talking about something you are excited about, if your demeanor doesn’t match that, then the video is going to be lifeless. Vlogging is a presentation, a performance. There needs to be energy.
Consider your audience: they are coming home from school or work, where there were classes and meetings, and the last thing they want to watch is a video of your speaking without energy.
Want to see a vlogger that is awesome at being expressive on camera? Check out Emma Chamberlain , if you haven’t already. Every word she says in her video is layered with emotion. We know exactly how she feels.
8. Stay Organized
The same way you should prepare before filming, it’s also important to be organized comes the editing phase. Editing is arguably the most time-consuming part of the vlogging process, so have a system for categorizing and finding your footages.
This is especially important when you have multiple video and audio files and if you are capturing footage over a number of days or in different locations.
Additionally, while filming your vlog, you are going to mess up. It’s also helpful to add a cue after you messed up, this can be a sound cue that causes the levels to spike (clapping or snapping your fingers work) or a video cue such as a dramatic gesture to the camera. When skipping through your footage to find the part where you messed up, later on, it’s easier to have a mark to help you locate it.
Vlogging is hard, so don’t make more work for yourself. Learn little tricks to make life easier for yourself at every step.
The more organized you are the more attention you can put into the creative aspect of vlogging, and less time finding a video file or syncing audio to video.
There you have it, 8 tips to help you vlog like the pros. Anyone can vlog. But only until you point a camera at yourself in public for the first time, do you realize how uncomfortable vlogging can be.
Even filming yourself in your room with the door closed — and nobody is in the house with you — can be a challenge for beginning vloggers. If you find watching your first few videos to be cringy, don’t be discouraged. There are fears of vlogging, but you can overcome them .
Take a look at some of the first videos from popular YouTubers and you can see that everyone had a starting point.
Do you have any vlogging tricks of your own? Leave a comment below.
If you want to find a video editing solution that empowers your imagination and creativity yet takes less effort, please try this robust and user-friendly video editing software Wondershare Filmora, which will definitely enhance your productivity and helps you to make money by making videos much easier.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
For most people, vlogging is not something that comes naturally. Like any skill, it takes practice to improve. When someone is good at vlogging, they make it look easy.
When we watch the most popular YouTubers, the traits that make them successful are often invisible, because we are so consumed by their vlog. In this article, I’ll highlight 8 tips from the most accomplished vloggers on the Internet, so that you can vlog confidently and make the best YouTube videos.
1. Be Authentic
People opt to watch vlogs because they want to see something real.
Vlogging is about honesty, telling a story that is truthful and showing your personality. The most popular vloggers are likable because they don’t deceive the audience, they befriend them. Vloggers treat their audience with respect and that comes from being honest.
There will be an urge for you to mimic other vloggers, talking and acting the way they do, but savvy YouTube viewers will be able to see your faux personality pretty quickly.
Don’t focus on your image, but instead focus on your voice. What makes you different? That is how you will build a proper reputation.
2. Tell A Story
A vlog is not an assortment of footage haphazardly put together. A successful vlog must have a story: a conflict told with a beginning, middle, and end.
When you are casually telling a story to a friend, you are not thinking about the structure or the plot. You are focused on what happened and you want to communicate it as accurately as you can. While vlogging, you should approach it much the same way. Ad-libbing is fine. Stumbling is fine. Going back and repeating a part of the story is fine. By simply getting your story on camera, you now have all the pieces.
Once all the pieces of the story are captured — including your storytelling, b-roll, and other supportive footage — you must now cut out all the irrelevant or repetitive parts and edit it so it can be enjoyed as one cohesive tale.
Take a look at this example from Tiffany Alvord and notice how there are jump cuts both to skip information that can be assumed by the audience and add the tension to the story she’s telling.
3. Surprise and Delight Your Audience
There is a saying that a great ending to a story is that it is surprising, yet inevitable .
The ending needs to be justified even if there is a twist. Everything before that had worked to build up the tension and when it concludes it needs to be logical. However, the ending cannot be something that the audience can guess. Remember those mystery movies where you know who the murderer is after the first few scenes? Yeah… those aren’t satisfying. A good story ends with a surprise, and with everything prior leading up to it.
The gold standard example of a surprising, yet inevitable end is Casey Neistat’s bike lane video. Everything in the video is leading up to the end, but when you watch it the first time it’s unexpected, and that’s why it’s so good.
4. Be Inviting
A common trait of successful vloggers is that they are welcoming. They share their passion and encourage others to join in. Vlogging is about being a guide. It doesn’t matter if you are leading a tour of your home or showing your viewer an interesting new skill, it is important for you to approach the whole process with open arms.
Unlike being invited to a party, there is no obligation when it comes to YouTube. Your viewers can continue to live vicariously through you or they may be inspired by your experience and dare to try it themselves.
The opposite of inviting is rejecting, and when you are a vlogger, you don’t want to reject anyone from enjoying your videos.
5. Compose the Shot
Vlogging is a visual medium, and while the story is important, what is captured in the frame will play an impactful role in the video as well.
In a way, every vlogger needs to have a director’s eye for cinematography. I’m not saying that you need to be Wes Anderson to be an awesome vlogger, but knowing what is in the frame with you, the angle of the shot, the movement of the camera, and the quality of light will help the product look better.
The great thing about vlogging is that you will get a lot of practice framing shots, so I encourage you to learn the basics of video editing .
Check out this example from Rosanna Pansino , where she gives a tour of her bedroom.
The camera follows her fluidly throughout the video, but it is her eyes that guide both the camera moves and what she wants our attention to be directed to. Don’t hesitate to let the viewer know what you want them to see.
6. Be Prepared
While you can pick up a camera and start vlogging on the fly, being prepared enables you to produce the best video possible. Take a few minutes before you hit record simply to outline the key points you want to talk about and how the video will end, ensuring that after filming you haven’t forgotten a crucial part.
Additionally, knowing what to say makes you a better host for your vlog. Watch your favorite vlogger, I bet when they are speaking on camera, their speech is not littered with umms and ahhs…
Good preparation includes having all your gear ready for filming when you need it. There is nothing worse than being set to shoot and running out of battery or memory.
Take a look at Ashley Nichole in this vlog and notice that although she sounds spontaneous, it is also evident that she knows what she is going to talk about next.
7. Be Expressive
Remember those teachers that drone on and on, without adding any expression or passion to what they are lecturing? While they might have been perfectly suitable as teachers, they wouldn’t make good vloggers.
If you speak on camera in a monotone voice, you are not being expressive. Your facial and body language will match your lackluster performance. Even if you are talking about something you are excited about, if your demeanor doesn’t match that, then the video is going to be lifeless. Vlogging is a presentation, a performance. There needs to be energy.
Consider your audience: they are coming home from school or work, where there were classes and meetings, and the last thing they want to watch is a video of your speaking without energy.
Want to see a vlogger that is awesome at being expressive on camera? Check out Emma Chamberlain , if you haven’t already. Every word she says in her video is layered with emotion. We know exactly how she feels.
8. Stay Organized
The same way you should prepare before filming, it’s also important to be organized comes the editing phase. Editing is arguably the most time-consuming part of the vlogging process, so have a system for categorizing and finding your footages.
This is especially important when you have multiple video and audio files and if you are capturing footage over a number of days or in different locations.
Additionally, while filming your vlog, you are going to mess up. It’s also helpful to add a cue after you messed up, this can be a sound cue that causes the levels to spike (clapping or snapping your fingers work) or a video cue such as a dramatic gesture to the camera. When skipping through your footage to find the part where you messed up, later on, it’s easier to have a mark to help you locate it.
Vlogging is hard, so don’t make more work for yourself. Learn little tricks to make life easier for yourself at every step.
The more organized you are the more attention you can put into the creative aspect of vlogging, and less time finding a video file or syncing audio to video.
There you have it, 8 tips to help you vlog like the pros. Anyone can vlog. But only until you point a camera at yourself in public for the first time, do you realize how uncomfortable vlogging can be.
Even filming yourself in your room with the door closed — and nobody is in the house with you — can be a challenge for beginning vloggers. If you find watching your first few videos to be cringy, don’t be discouraged. There are fears of vlogging, but you can overcome them .
Take a look at some of the first videos from popular YouTubers and you can see that everyone had a starting point.
Do you have any vlogging tricks of your own? Leave a comment below.
If you want to find a video editing solution that empowers your imagination and creativity yet takes less effort, please try this robust and user-friendly video editing software Wondershare Filmora, which will definitely enhance your productivity and helps you to make money by making videos much easier.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
For most people, vlogging is not something that comes naturally. Like any skill, it takes practice to improve. When someone is good at vlogging, they make it look easy.
When we watch the most popular YouTubers, the traits that make them successful are often invisible, because we are so consumed by their vlog. In this article, I’ll highlight 8 tips from the most accomplished vloggers on the Internet, so that you can vlog confidently and make the best YouTube videos.
1. Be Authentic
People opt to watch vlogs because they want to see something real.
Vlogging is about honesty, telling a story that is truthful and showing your personality. The most popular vloggers are likable because they don’t deceive the audience, they befriend them. Vloggers treat their audience with respect and that comes from being honest.
There will be an urge for you to mimic other vloggers, talking and acting the way they do, but savvy YouTube viewers will be able to see your faux personality pretty quickly.
Don’t focus on your image, but instead focus on your voice. What makes you different? That is how you will build a proper reputation.
2. Tell A Story
A vlog is not an assortment of footage haphazardly put together. A successful vlog must have a story: a conflict told with a beginning, middle, and end.
When you are casually telling a story to a friend, you are not thinking about the structure or the plot. You are focused on what happened and you want to communicate it as accurately as you can. While vlogging, you should approach it much the same way. Ad-libbing is fine. Stumbling is fine. Going back and repeating a part of the story is fine. By simply getting your story on camera, you now have all the pieces.
Once all the pieces of the story are captured — including your storytelling, b-roll, and other supportive footage — you must now cut out all the irrelevant or repetitive parts and edit it so it can be enjoyed as one cohesive tale.
Take a look at this example from Tiffany Alvord and notice how there are jump cuts both to skip information that can be assumed by the audience and add the tension to the story she’s telling.
3. Surprise and Delight Your Audience
There is a saying that a great ending to a story is that it is surprising, yet inevitable .
The ending needs to be justified even if there is a twist. Everything before that had worked to build up the tension and when it concludes it needs to be logical. However, the ending cannot be something that the audience can guess. Remember those mystery movies where you know who the murderer is after the first few scenes? Yeah… those aren’t satisfying. A good story ends with a surprise, and with everything prior leading up to it.
The gold standard example of a surprising, yet inevitable end is Casey Neistat’s bike lane video. Everything in the video is leading up to the end, but when you watch it the first time it’s unexpected, and that’s why it’s so good.
4. Be Inviting
A common trait of successful vloggers is that they are welcoming. They share their passion and encourage others to join in. Vlogging is about being a guide. It doesn’t matter if you are leading a tour of your home or showing your viewer an interesting new skill, it is important for you to approach the whole process with open arms.
Unlike being invited to a party, there is no obligation when it comes to YouTube. Your viewers can continue to live vicariously through you or they may be inspired by your experience and dare to try it themselves.
The opposite of inviting is rejecting, and when you are a vlogger, you don’t want to reject anyone from enjoying your videos.
5. Compose the Shot
Vlogging is a visual medium, and while the story is important, what is captured in the frame will play an impactful role in the video as well.
In a way, every vlogger needs to have a director’s eye for cinematography. I’m not saying that you need to be Wes Anderson to be an awesome vlogger, but knowing what is in the frame with you, the angle of the shot, the movement of the camera, and the quality of light will help the product look better.
The great thing about vlogging is that you will get a lot of practice framing shots, so I encourage you to learn the basics of video editing .
Check out this example from Rosanna Pansino , where she gives a tour of her bedroom.
The camera follows her fluidly throughout the video, but it is her eyes that guide both the camera moves and what she wants our attention to be directed to. Don’t hesitate to let the viewer know what you want them to see.
6. Be Prepared
While you can pick up a camera and start vlogging on the fly, being prepared enables you to produce the best video possible. Take a few minutes before you hit record simply to outline the key points you want to talk about and how the video will end, ensuring that after filming you haven’t forgotten a crucial part.
Additionally, knowing what to say makes you a better host for your vlog. Watch your favorite vlogger, I bet when they are speaking on camera, their speech is not littered with umms and ahhs…
Good preparation includes having all your gear ready for filming when you need it. There is nothing worse than being set to shoot and running out of battery or memory.
Take a look at Ashley Nichole in this vlog and notice that although she sounds spontaneous, it is also evident that she knows what she is going to talk about next.
7. Be Expressive
Remember those teachers that drone on and on, without adding any expression or passion to what they are lecturing? While they might have been perfectly suitable as teachers, they wouldn’t make good vloggers.
If you speak on camera in a monotone voice, you are not being expressive. Your facial and body language will match your lackluster performance. Even if you are talking about something you are excited about, if your demeanor doesn’t match that, then the video is going to be lifeless. Vlogging is a presentation, a performance. There needs to be energy.
Consider your audience: they are coming home from school or work, where there were classes and meetings, and the last thing they want to watch is a video of your speaking without energy.
Want to see a vlogger that is awesome at being expressive on camera? Check out Emma Chamberlain , if you haven’t already. Every word she says in her video is layered with emotion. We know exactly how she feels.
8. Stay Organized
The same way you should prepare before filming, it’s also important to be organized comes the editing phase. Editing is arguably the most time-consuming part of the vlogging process, so have a system for categorizing and finding your footages.
This is especially important when you have multiple video and audio files and if you are capturing footage over a number of days or in different locations.
Additionally, while filming your vlog, you are going to mess up. It’s also helpful to add a cue after you messed up, this can be a sound cue that causes the levels to spike (clapping or snapping your fingers work) or a video cue such as a dramatic gesture to the camera. When skipping through your footage to find the part where you messed up, later on, it’s easier to have a mark to help you locate it.
Vlogging is hard, so don’t make more work for yourself. Learn little tricks to make life easier for yourself at every step.
The more organized you are the more attention you can put into the creative aspect of vlogging, and less time finding a video file or syncing audio to video.
There you have it, 8 tips to help you vlog like the pros. Anyone can vlog. But only until you point a camera at yourself in public for the first time, do you realize how uncomfortable vlogging can be.
Even filming yourself in your room with the door closed — and nobody is in the house with you — can be a challenge for beginning vloggers. If you find watching your first few videos to be cringy, don’t be discouraged. There are fears of vlogging, but you can overcome them .
Take a look at some of the first videos from popular YouTubers and you can see that everyone had a starting point.
Do you have any vlogging tricks of your own? Leave a comment below.
If you want to find a video editing solution that empowers your imagination and creativity yet takes less effort, please try this robust and user-friendly video editing software Wondershare Filmora, which will definitely enhance your productivity and helps you to make money by making videos much easier.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
For most people, vlogging is not something that comes naturally. Like any skill, it takes practice to improve. When someone is good at vlogging, they make it look easy.
When we watch the most popular YouTubers, the traits that make them successful are often invisible, because we are so consumed by their vlog. In this article, I’ll highlight 8 tips from the most accomplished vloggers on the Internet, so that you can vlog confidently and make the best YouTube videos.
1. Be Authentic
People opt to watch vlogs because they want to see something real.
Vlogging is about honesty, telling a story that is truthful and showing your personality. The most popular vloggers are likable because they don’t deceive the audience, they befriend them. Vloggers treat their audience with respect and that comes from being honest.
There will be an urge for you to mimic other vloggers, talking and acting the way they do, but savvy YouTube viewers will be able to see your faux personality pretty quickly.
Don’t focus on your image, but instead focus on your voice. What makes you different? That is how you will build a proper reputation.
2. Tell A Story
A vlog is not an assortment of footage haphazardly put together. A successful vlog must have a story: a conflict told with a beginning, middle, and end.
When you are casually telling a story to a friend, you are not thinking about the structure or the plot. You are focused on what happened and you want to communicate it as accurately as you can. While vlogging, you should approach it much the same way. Ad-libbing is fine. Stumbling is fine. Going back and repeating a part of the story is fine. By simply getting your story on camera, you now have all the pieces.
Once all the pieces of the story are captured — including your storytelling, b-roll, and other supportive footage — you must now cut out all the irrelevant or repetitive parts and edit it so it can be enjoyed as one cohesive tale.
Take a look at this example from Tiffany Alvord and notice how there are jump cuts both to skip information that can be assumed by the audience and add the tension to the story she’s telling.
3. Surprise and Delight Your Audience
There is a saying that a great ending to a story is that it is surprising, yet inevitable .
The ending needs to be justified even if there is a twist. Everything before that had worked to build up the tension and when it concludes it needs to be logical. However, the ending cannot be something that the audience can guess. Remember those mystery movies where you know who the murderer is after the first few scenes? Yeah… those aren’t satisfying. A good story ends with a surprise, and with everything prior leading up to it.
The gold standard example of a surprising, yet inevitable end is Casey Neistat’s bike lane video. Everything in the video is leading up to the end, but when you watch it the first time it’s unexpected, and that’s why it’s so good.
4. Be Inviting
A common trait of successful vloggers is that they are welcoming. They share their passion and encourage others to join in. Vlogging is about being a guide. It doesn’t matter if you are leading a tour of your home or showing your viewer an interesting new skill, it is important for you to approach the whole process with open arms.
Unlike being invited to a party, there is no obligation when it comes to YouTube. Your viewers can continue to live vicariously through you or they may be inspired by your experience and dare to try it themselves.
The opposite of inviting is rejecting, and when you are a vlogger, you don’t want to reject anyone from enjoying your videos.
5. Compose the Shot
Vlogging is a visual medium, and while the story is important, what is captured in the frame will play an impactful role in the video as well.
In a way, every vlogger needs to have a director’s eye for cinematography. I’m not saying that you need to be Wes Anderson to be an awesome vlogger, but knowing what is in the frame with you, the angle of the shot, the movement of the camera, and the quality of light will help the product look better.
The great thing about vlogging is that you will get a lot of practice framing shots, so I encourage you to learn the basics of video editing .
Check out this example from Rosanna Pansino , where she gives a tour of her bedroom.
The camera follows her fluidly throughout the video, but it is her eyes that guide both the camera moves and what she wants our attention to be directed to. Don’t hesitate to let the viewer know what you want them to see.
6. Be Prepared
While you can pick up a camera and start vlogging on the fly, being prepared enables you to produce the best video possible. Take a few minutes before you hit record simply to outline the key points you want to talk about and how the video will end, ensuring that after filming you haven’t forgotten a crucial part.
Additionally, knowing what to say makes you a better host for your vlog. Watch your favorite vlogger, I bet when they are speaking on camera, their speech is not littered with umms and ahhs…
Good preparation includes having all your gear ready for filming when you need it. There is nothing worse than being set to shoot and running out of battery or memory.
Take a look at Ashley Nichole in this vlog and notice that although she sounds spontaneous, it is also evident that she knows what she is going to talk about next.
7. Be Expressive
Remember those teachers that drone on and on, without adding any expression or passion to what they are lecturing? While they might have been perfectly suitable as teachers, they wouldn’t make good vloggers.
If you speak on camera in a monotone voice, you are not being expressive. Your facial and body language will match your lackluster performance. Even if you are talking about something you are excited about, if your demeanor doesn’t match that, then the video is going to be lifeless. Vlogging is a presentation, a performance. There needs to be energy.
Consider your audience: they are coming home from school or work, where there were classes and meetings, and the last thing they want to watch is a video of your speaking without energy.
Want to see a vlogger that is awesome at being expressive on camera? Check out Emma Chamberlain , if you haven’t already. Every word she says in her video is layered with emotion. We know exactly how she feels.
8. Stay Organized
The same way you should prepare before filming, it’s also important to be organized comes the editing phase. Editing is arguably the most time-consuming part of the vlogging process, so have a system for categorizing and finding your footages.
This is especially important when you have multiple video and audio files and if you are capturing footage over a number of days or in different locations.
Additionally, while filming your vlog, you are going to mess up. It’s also helpful to add a cue after you messed up, this can be a sound cue that causes the levels to spike (clapping or snapping your fingers work) or a video cue such as a dramatic gesture to the camera. When skipping through your footage to find the part where you messed up, later on, it’s easier to have a mark to help you locate it.
Vlogging is hard, so don’t make more work for yourself. Learn little tricks to make life easier for yourself at every step.
The more organized you are the more attention you can put into the creative aspect of vlogging, and less time finding a video file or syncing audio to video.
There you have it, 8 tips to help you vlog like the pros. Anyone can vlog. But only until you point a camera at yourself in public for the first time, do you realize how uncomfortable vlogging can be.
Even filming yourself in your room with the door closed — and nobody is in the house with you — can be a challenge for beginning vloggers. If you find watching your first few videos to be cringy, don’t be discouraged. There are fears of vlogging, but you can overcome them .
Take a look at some of the first videos from popular YouTubers and you can see that everyone had a starting point.
Do you have any vlogging tricks of your own? Leave a comment below.
If you want to find a video editing solution that empowers your imagination and creativity yet takes less effort, please try this robust and user-friendly video editing software Wondershare Filmora, which will definitely enhance your productivity and helps you to make money by making videos much easier.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
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- Title: "2024 Approved Six Offbeat Sources for Customized Video Theme Elements"
- Author: Joseph
- Created at : 2024-05-31 13:46:50
- Updated at : 2024-06-01 13:46:50
- Link: https://youtube-stream.techidaily.com/2024-approved-six-offbeat-sources-for-customized-video-theme-elements/
- License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
