For Social Media Savants: Distinguishing Between IGTV & YouTube

IGTV VS YouTube: Should Video Content Creators Use One Platform or The Other?

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

IGTV receives quite a lot of attention from marketers and content creators alike. Some even go so far to compare IGTV to YouTube, currently, the largest video sharing platform in the world that hosts 300 minutes of video each minute. IGTV may have fewer users than YouTube, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to use it effectively for a wide array of different purposes. So, in this article, we are going to take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each platform in order to help you discover how you can utilize each of these social networks to broaden the audience for the content you share online.

You May Also Like:
Instagram Reels VS Instagram Stories–Everything You Need to Know >>
YouTube Shorts vs. TikTok: Which One Is Better? >>

IGTV VS YouTube: What’s the difference

Comparison between IGTV and YouTube is somewhat unfair towards the former since IGTV is a much younger platform that still needs time to develop. YouTube, on the other hand, has a reputation as one of the most reliable video sharing platforms ever created that enables people from all walks of life to upload and share music, movies, gaming videos and virtually any other type of moving images. Even so, let’s take a look at major differences and similarities between IGTV and YouTube.

Have a Quick Glance of the Differences

01 Interface Differences

02 The Upload Process

03 Discovering New Content

03 Monetization

03 Analytics and Insights

1. Interface Differences

Despite the fact that you can access IGTV from a web browser, this platform is predominantly dedicated to videos that are going to be watched on mobile devices. This also means that the thumbnails of the videos you uploaded to your IGTV channel are going to be displayed differently than those on your YouTube channel. The interfaces of these two social networks are entirely different, but if you are a newcomer to each of these platforms you won’t have much trouble getting used to them.

2. The Upload Process

The fact that you can only upload vertically oriented videos to IGTV somewhat limits your options because you either have to record a video for IGTV specifically or you must edit a horizontally oriented video and change its aspect ratio to 9:16. You can upload videos to YouTube and IGTV directly from your computer or you can use iPhone and Android-based apps to capture videos with your phone and upload them to either of these platforms. The maximum duration of an IGTV video can’t exceed sixty minutes, while the default duration of all videos on YouTube is set to 15 minutes. Nonetheless, if you own a verified YouTube account, you can upload videos that have 128GB and last up to 12 hours.

At the moment the videos you want to upload to your IGTV channel have to be saved in the MP4 file format because the platform still doesn’t offer support for any other video file format. YouTube grants much more freedom in this respect as it allows you to upload videos saved in AVI, FLV, MOV, MP4 and other commonly used file formats.

3. Discovering New Content

IGTV is more than a decade younger than YouTube, so you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re having trouble discovering new content. Moreover, IGTV’s search engine is still relatively new and it is much less powerful than the one used by YouTube. This is the reason why the videos you upload to your YouTube channel are going to be much easier to find via a simple Google search than those you shared on IGTV. Besides, YouTube offers much more new content on a daily basis than IGTV, and it is clear that the Instagram’s new brainchild still has ways to go before it reaches the point when it can challenge the largest video sharing platform in the world in terms of diversity of the content that it delivers to its users.

4. Monetization

At the moment, views and likes can’t be monetized on IGTV, so most influencers rely on sponsorships from brands. Things may change as the platform grows, but for the time being IGTV doesn’t provide the content creators with any compensation for the work they are putting in. YouTube allows content creators to monetize their videos through Google Adsense for years, and some of its most prominent users like PewDiePie or Logan Paul have earned hundreds of millions of dollars by posting new content on their YouTube channels. Keep in mind that you are going to need at least a thousand subscribers and 4,000 hours of viewing time before you can enable YouTube’s Monetize feature.

5. Analytics and Insights

Knowing how many people watched the entire video or how many likes and comments certain types of videos get can help you produce content that attracts a larger audience on all social networks. The metrics such as engagement or view-through rates can be essential during online marketing campaigns as they can suggest how many people are watching your videos and for how long. The analytics tools YouTube provides are much more diverse than those offered by IGTV that only lets you see the audience retention graph and the number of views and comments a video currently has. YouTube is an obviously a much better option for anyone who wants to conduct an in-depth analysis of their content’s performance, although the tools on IGTV are still powerful enough to indicate which type of content your audience likes the most.

Why Shouldn’t You Use YouTube and IGTV For the Same Purposes?

You shouldn’t assume that you can post the same type of videos on your YouTube and IGTV channels, just because they are both video sharing platforms. The content you create for your IGTV channel needs to be dynamic and entertaining in order to captivate the audience’s attention. Posting tutorials or hour-long gaming videos on IGTV won’t attract as many viewers as on YouTube, which is why businesses who want to use IGTV to promote their products and services need to choose the content carefully. Furthermore, the videos that last between two and five minutes are still by far the most popular on IGTV, so even though technically you can upload a video that lasts one hour to your IGTV channel, the chances are that such long videos won’t get a lot of views.

IGTV is probably best used as a tool that can help improve the engagement with your followers on Instagram, but if you want to become an established video content creator, then running a YouTube channel is simply a much better option. It still remains to be seen how will IGTV evolve in the years to come, but at the present moment this platform doesn’t really have any chance of challenging YouTube’s position as the world’s leading video sharing platform.

However, no matter which video platform you choose, you need to ensure the videos you create are of high quality. A good video editing software like Filmora can help you acheive this goal.

Useful Features of Filmora

• Cokor Matching: Apply color correction setting to multiple clips on one-click.
• Effects: Create blockbuster videos with preset effects.
• Motion Tracking: Track moving items and add elements to it at ease.
• And more waiting for you to discover.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

IGTV receives quite a lot of attention from marketers and content creators alike. Some even go so far to compare IGTV to YouTube, currently, the largest video sharing platform in the world that hosts 300 minutes of video each minute. IGTV may have fewer users than YouTube, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to use it effectively for a wide array of different purposes. So, in this article, we are going to take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each platform in order to help you discover how you can utilize each of these social networks to broaden the audience for the content you share online.

You May Also Like:
Instagram Reels VS Instagram Stories–Everything You Need to Know >>
YouTube Shorts vs. TikTok: Which One Is Better? >>

IGTV VS YouTube: What’s the difference

Comparison between IGTV and YouTube is somewhat unfair towards the former since IGTV is a much younger platform that still needs time to develop. YouTube, on the other hand, has a reputation as one of the most reliable video sharing platforms ever created that enables people from all walks of life to upload and share music, movies, gaming videos and virtually any other type of moving images. Even so, let’s take a look at major differences and similarities between IGTV and YouTube.

Have a Quick Glance of the Differences

01 Interface Differences

02 The Upload Process

03 Discovering New Content

03 Monetization

03 Analytics and Insights

1. Interface Differences

Despite the fact that you can access IGTV from a web browser, this platform is predominantly dedicated to videos that are going to be watched on mobile devices. This also means that the thumbnails of the videos you uploaded to your IGTV channel are going to be displayed differently than those on your YouTube channel. The interfaces of these two social networks are entirely different, but if you are a newcomer to each of these platforms you won’t have much trouble getting used to them.

2. The Upload Process

The fact that you can only upload vertically oriented videos to IGTV somewhat limits your options because you either have to record a video for IGTV specifically or you must edit a horizontally oriented video and change its aspect ratio to 9:16. You can upload videos to YouTube and IGTV directly from your computer or you can use iPhone and Android-based apps to capture videos with your phone and upload them to either of these platforms. The maximum duration of an IGTV video can’t exceed sixty minutes, while the default duration of all videos on YouTube is set to 15 minutes. Nonetheless, if you own a verified YouTube account, you can upload videos that have 128GB and last up to 12 hours.

At the moment the videos you want to upload to your IGTV channel have to be saved in the MP4 file format because the platform still doesn’t offer support for any other video file format. YouTube grants much more freedom in this respect as it allows you to upload videos saved in AVI, FLV, MOV, MP4 and other commonly used file formats.

3. Discovering New Content

IGTV is more than a decade younger than YouTube, so you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re having trouble discovering new content. Moreover, IGTV’s search engine is still relatively new and it is much less powerful than the one used by YouTube. This is the reason why the videos you upload to your YouTube channel are going to be much easier to find via a simple Google search than those you shared on IGTV. Besides, YouTube offers much more new content on a daily basis than IGTV, and it is clear that the Instagram’s new brainchild still has ways to go before it reaches the point when it can challenge the largest video sharing platform in the world in terms of diversity of the content that it delivers to its users.

4. Monetization

At the moment, views and likes can’t be monetized on IGTV, so most influencers rely on sponsorships from brands. Things may change as the platform grows, but for the time being IGTV doesn’t provide the content creators with any compensation for the work they are putting in. YouTube allows content creators to monetize their videos through Google Adsense for years, and some of its most prominent users like PewDiePie or Logan Paul have earned hundreds of millions of dollars by posting new content on their YouTube channels. Keep in mind that you are going to need at least a thousand subscribers and 4,000 hours of viewing time before you can enable YouTube’s Monetize feature.

5. Analytics and Insights

Knowing how many people watched the entire video or how many likes and comments certain types of videos get can help you produce content that attracts a larger audience on all social networks. The metrics such as engagement or view-through rates can be essential during online marketing campaigns as they can suggest how many people are watching your videos and for how long. The analytics tools YouTube provides are much more diverse than those offered by IGTV that only lets you see the audience retention graph and the number of views and comments a video currently has. YouTube is an obviously a much better option for anyone who wants to conduct an in-depth analysis of their content’s performance, although the tools on IGTV are still powerful enough to indicate which type of content your audience likes the most.

Why Shouldn’t You Use YouTube and IGTV For the Same Purposes?

You shouldn’t assume that you can post the same type of videos on your YouTube and IGTV channels, just because they are both video sharing platforms. The content you create for your IGTV channel needs to be dynamic and entertaining in order to captivate the audience’s attention. Posting tutorials or hour-long gaming videos on IGTV won’t attract as many viewers as on YouTube, which is why businesses who want to use IGTV to promote their products and services need to choose the content carefully. Furthermore, the videos that last between two and five minutes are still by far the most popular on IGTV, so even though technically you can upload a video that lasts one hour to your IGTV channel, the chances are that such long videos won’t get a lot of views.

IGTV is probably best used as a tool that can help improve the engagement with your followers on Instagram, but if you want to become an established video content creator, then running a YouTube channel is simply a much better option. It still remains to be seen how will IGTV evolve in the years to come, but at the present moment this platform doesn’t really have any chance of challenging YouTube’s position as the world’s leading video sharing platform.

However, no matter which video platform you choose, you need to ensure the videos you create are of high quality. A good video editing software like Filmora can help you acheive this goal.

Useful Features of Filmora

• Cokor Matching: Apply color correction setting to multiple clips on one-click.
• Effects: Create blockbuster videos with preset effects.
• Motion Tracking: Track moving items and add elements to it at ease.
• And more waiting for you to discover.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

IGTV receives quite a lot of attention from marketers and content creators alike. Some even go so far to compare IGTV to YouTube, currently, the largest video sharing platform in the world that hosts 300 minutes of video each minute. IGTV may have fewer users than YouTube, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to use it effectively for a wide array of different purposes. So, in this article, we are going to take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each platform in order to help you discover how you can utilize each of these social networks to broaden the audience for the content you share online.

You May Also Like:
Instagram Reels VS Instagram Stories–Everything You Need to Know >>
YouTube Shorts vs. TikTok: Which One Is Better? >>

IGTV VS YouTube: What’s the difference

Comparison between IGTV and YouTube is somewhat unfair towards the former since IGTV is a much younger platform that still needs time to develop. YouTube, on the other hand, has a reputation as one of the most reliable video sharing platforms ever created that enables people from all walks of life to upload and share music, movies, gaming videos and virtually any other type of moving images. Even so, let’s take a look at major differences and similarities between IGTV and YouTube.

Have a Quick Glance of the Differences

01 Interface Differences

02 The Upload Process

03 Discovering New Content

03 Monetization

03 Analytics and Insights

1. Interface Differences

Despite the fact that you can access IGTV from a web browser, this platform is predominantly dedicated to videos that are going to be watched on mobile devices. This also means that the thumbnails of the videos you uploaded to your IGTV channel are going to be displayed differently than those on your YouTube channel. The interfaces of these two social networks are entirely different, but if you are a newcomer to each of these platforms you won’t have much trouble getting used to them.

2. The Upload Process

The fact that you can only upload vertically oriented videos to IGTV somewhat limits your options because you either have to record a video for IGTV specifically or you must edit a horizontally oriented video and change its aspect ratio to 9:16. You can upload videos to YouTube and IGTV directly from your computer or you can use iPhone and Android-based apps to capture videos with your phone and upload them to either of these platforms. The maximum duration of an IGTV video can’t exceed sixty minutes, while the default duration of all videos on YouTube is set to 15 minutes. Nonetheless, if you own a verified YouTube account, you can upload videos that have 128GB and last up to 12 hours.

At the moment the videos you want to upload to your IGTV channel have to be saved in the MP4 file format because the platform still doesn’t offer support for any other video file format. YouTube grants much more freedom in this respect as it allows you to upload videos saved in AVI, FLV, MOV, MP4 and other commonly used file formats.

3. Discovering New Content

IGTV is more than a decade younger than YouTube, so you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re having trouble discovering new content. Moreover, IGTV’s search engine is still relatively new and it is much less powerful than the one used by YouTube. This is the reason why the videos you upload to your YouTube channel are going to be much easier to find via a simple Google search than those you shared on IGTV. Besides, YouTube offers much more new content on a daily basis than IGTV, and it is clear that the Instagram’s new brainchild still has ways to go before it reaches the point when it can challenge the largest video sharing platform in the world in terms of diversity of the content that it delivers to its users.

4. Monetization

At the moment, views and likes can’t be monetized on IGTV, so most influencers rely on sponsorships from brands. Things may change as the platform grows, but for the time being IGTV doesn’t provide the content creators with any compensation for the work they are putting in. YouTube allows content creators to monetize their videos through Google Adsense for years, and some of its most prominent users like PewDiePie or Logan Paul have earned hundreds of millions of dollars by posting new content on their YouTube channels. Keep in mind that you are going to need at least a thousand subscribers and 4,000 hours of viewing time before you can enable YouTube’s Monetize feature.

5. Analytics and Insights

Knowing how many people watched the entire video or how many likes and comments certain types of videos get can help you produce content that attracts a larger audience on all social networks. The metrics such as engagement or view-through rates can be essential during online marketing campaigns as they can suggest how many people are watching your videos and for how long. The analytics tools YouTube provides are much more diverse than those offered by IGTV that only lets you see the audience retention graph and the number of views and comments a video currently has. YouTube is an obviously a much better option for anyone who wants to conduct an in-depth analysis of their content’s performance, although the tools on IGTV are still powerful enough to indicate which type of content your audience likes the most.

Why Shouldn’t You Use YouTube and IGTV For the Same Purposes?

You shouldn’t assume that you can post the same type of videos on your YouTube and IGTV channels, just because they are both video sharing platforms. The content you create for your IGTV channel needs to be dynamic and entertaining in order to captivate the audience’s attention. Posting tutorials or hour-long gaming videos on IGTV won’t attract as many viewers as on YouTube, which is why businesses who want to use IGTV to promote their products and services need to choose the content carefully. Furthermore, the videos that last between two and five minutes are still by far the most popular on IGTV, so even though technically you can upload a video that lasts one hour to your IGTV channel, the chances are that such long videos won’t get a lot of views.

IGTV is probably best used as a tool that can help improve the engagement with your followers on Instagram, but if you want to become an established video content creator, then running a YouTube channel is simply a much better option. It still remains to be seen how will IGTV evolve in the years to come, but at the present moment this platform doesn’t really have any chance of challenging YouTube’s position as the world’s leading video sharing platform.

However, no matter which video platform you choose, you need to ensure the videos you create are of high quality. A good video editing software like Filmora can help you acheive this goal.

Useful Features of Filmora

• Cokor Matching: Apply color correction setting to multiple clips on one-click.
• Effects: Create blockbuster videos with preset effects.
• Motion Tracking: Track moving items and add elements to it at ease.
• And more waiting for you to discover.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

IGTV receives quite a lot of attention from marketers and content creators alike. Some even go so far to compare IGTV to YouTube, currently, the largest video sharing platform in the world that hosts 300 minutes of video each minute. IGTV may have fewer users than YouTube, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to use it effectively for a wide array of different purposes. So, in this article, we are going to take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each platform in order to help you discover how you can utilize each of these social networks to broaden the audience for the content you share online.

You May Also Like:
Instagram Reels VS Instagram Stories–Everything You Need to Know >>
YouTube Shorts vs. TikTok: Which One Is Better? >>

IGTV VS YouTube: What’s the difference

Comparison between IGTV and YouTube is somewhat unfair towards the former since IGTV is a much younger platform that still needs time to develop. YouTube, on the other hand, has a reputation as one of the most reliable video sharing platforms ever created that enables people from all walks of life to upload and share music, movies, gaming videos and virtually any other type of moving images. Even so, let’s take a look at major differences and similarities between IGTV and YouTube.

Have a Quick Glance of the Differences

01 Interface Differences

02 The Upload Process

03 Discovering New Content

03 Monetization

03 Analytics and Insights

1. Interface Differences

Despite the fact that you can access IGTV from a web browser, this platform is predominantly dedicated to videos that are going to be watched on mobile devices. This also means that the thumbnails of the videos you uploaded to your IGTV channel are going to be displayed differently than those on your YouTube channel. The interfaces of these two social networks are entirely different, but if you are a newcomer to each of these platforms you won’t have much trouble getting used to them.

2. The Upload Process

The fact that you can only upload vertically oriented videos to IGTV somewhat limits your options because you either have to record a video for IGTV specifically or you must edit a horizontally oriented video and change its aspect ratio to 9:16. You can upload videos to YouTube and IGTV directly from your computer or you can use iPhone and Android-based apps to capture videos with your phone and upload them to either of these platforms. The maximum duration of an IGTV video can’t exceed sixty minutes, while the default duration of all videos on YouTube is set to 15 minutes. Nonetheless, if you own a verified YouTube account, you can upload videos that have 128GB and last up to 12 hours.

At the moment the videos you want to upload to your IGTV channel have to be saved in the MP4 file format because the platform still doesn’t offer support for any other video file format. YouTube grants much more freedom in this respect as it allows you to upload videos saved in AVI, FLV, MOV, MP4 and other commonly used file formats.

3. Discovering New Content

IGTV is more than a decade younger than YouTube, so you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re having trouble discovering new content. Moreover, IGTV’s search engine is still relatively new and it is much less powerful than the one used by YouTube. This is the reason why the videos you upload to your YouTube channel are going to be much easier to find via a simple Google search than those you shared on IGTV. Besides, YouTube offers much more new content on a daily basis than IGTV, and it is clear that the Instagram’s new brainchild still has ways to go before it reaches the point when it can challenge the largest video sharing platform in the world in terms of diversity of the content that it delivers to its users.

4. Monetization

At the moment, views and likes can’t be monetized on IGTV, so most influencers rely on sponsorships from brands. Things may change as the platform grows, but for the time being IGTV doesn’t provide the content creators with any compensation for the work they are putting in. YouTube allows content creators to monetize their videos through Google Adsense for years, and some of its most prominent users like PewDiePie or Logan Paul have earned hundreds of millions of dollars by posting new content on their YouTube channels. Keep in mind that you are going to need at least a thousand subscribers and 4,000 hours of viewing time before you can enable YouTube’s Monetize feature.

5. Analytics and Insights

Knowing how many people watched the entire video or how many likes and comments certain types of videos get can help you produce content that attracts a larger audience on all social networks. The metrics such as engagement or view-through rates can be essential during online marketing campaigns as they can suggest how many people are watching your videos and for how long. The analytics tools YouTube provides are much more diverse than those offered by IGTV that only lets you see the audience retention graph and the number of views and comments a video currently has. YouTube is an obviously a much better option for anyone who wants to conduct an in-depth analysis of their content’s performance, although the tools on IGTV are still powerful enough to indicate which type of content your audience likes the most.

Why Shouldn’t You Use YouTube and IGTV For the Same Purposes?

You shouldn’t assume that you can post the same type of videos on your YouTube and IGTV channels, just because they are both video sharing platforms. The content you create for your IGTV channel needs to be dynamic and entertaining in order to captivate the audience’s attention. Posting tutorials or hour-long gaming videos on IGTV won’t attract as many viewers as on YouTube, which is why businesses who want to use IGTV to promote their products and services need to choose the content carefully. Furthermore, the videos that last between two and five minutes are still by far the most popular on IGTV, so even though technically you can upload a video that lasts one hour to your IGTV channel, the chances are that such long videos won’t get a lot of views.

IGTV is probably best used as a tool that can help improve the engagement with your followers on Instagram, but if you want to become an established video content creator, then running a YouTube channel is simply a much better option. It still remains to be seen how will IGTV evolve in the years to come, but at the present moment this platform doesn’t really have any chance of challenging YouTube’s position as the world’s leading video sharing platform.

However, no matter which video platform you choose, you need to ensure the videos you create are of high quality. A good video editing software like Filmora can help you acheive this goal.

Useful Features of Filmora

• Cokor Matching: Apply color correction setting to multiple clips on one-click.
• Effects: Create blockbuster videos with preset effects.
• Motion Tracking: Track moving items and add elements to it at ease.
• And more waiting for you to discover.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

6 Must-Visit Destinations For Top-Notch YouTube Branding Elements

6 Completely Different Places to Get Icons and Logos for YouTube Videos

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

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.

• Flaticon.com
• Freepik.com
• Seeklogo.net
• IconArchive.com
• Logaster.com
• Icons8.com

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

0

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.

• Flaticon.com
• Freepik.com
• Seeklogo.net
• IconArchive.com
• Logaster.com
• Icons8.com

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

0

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.

• Flaticon.com
• Freepik.com
• Seeklogo.net
• IconArchive.com
• Logaster.com
• Icons8.com

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

0

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.

• Flaticon.com
• Freepik.com
• Seeklogo.net
• IconArchive.com
• Logaster.com
• Icons8.com

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.

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