You may have noticed that every channel you come across on YouTube looks different. Background images, color schemes, font choices…many decisions go into making your channel look the way you want it to look. Because everyone's tastes are different, I won't tell you how to customize your channel; rather, I'll show you where your customizing options are, and I'll leave it up to you to play with them and make your channel your own. Return to your Account page by clicking the Account link at the top of any YouTube page. In the last section, you clicked Channel Info; this time, click Channel Design, which is right below Channel Info (Figure 4-8).
You'll be taken to a new screen that offers you every option to customize the look of your channel (Figure 4-9). Adjust colors, fonts, background image, and elements of the layout. Move elements around or turn them off completely. Create a channel design you like that reflects the videos you'll upload. If your videos are edgy and dark, maybe a matching color scheme of dark grays or deep reds might be appropriate. If your videos are lighthearted, maybe light blues or oranges suit you better.
YouTube offers a few predesigned color themes for you to choose. If you're not skilled at mixing and matching colors, choosing one of these default color themes may be right choice you. If you're really into having control over every aspect of your channel, you can pick any colors you'd like using YouTube's color picker (Figure 4-10).
As you choose your color and design options, a real-time preview will update. This will give you a pretty good idea of what your newly designed channel will look like. Again, I can show you where these tools are, but I'm going to leave the actual designing up to you. Make your channel unique, but be sure it is readable. If you choose to put orange text on a pink background, no one is going to kill their eyes to read your channel description; they'll simply click the Back button and move on. Readability on a computer monitor is important, especially if you want people paying attention to what you're saying.
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I cannot stress this enough: You want to keep your page readable, and you don't want it to hurt people's eyes and drive them away. One problem that most people encounter when they finally get to do a little bit of "web design" is that they do things because they can, not because they should. MySpace is an excellent example of this. Many MySpace pages are so garish that you can't even read the text on them. YouTube fortunately doesn't give you as many choices, so it's hard to make an unreadable page, but try to make a page that looks good, which is not always the same as making it look really fancy.
After you design your channel and have it looking the way you want, click Update Channel, found at both the top and bottom of the Channel Design options page. Then, show it to a few friends or your brother or your mom (keep in mind, people who love you will give you an "A for effort"; strangers on the Internet are likely to be more critical). Get some feedback to make sure it's not too hard on the eyes. You'll also just naturally want to show off your new channel design.
Your channel design can be changed at any time. Change it with your mood if you'd like, or, if you have a special video coming up, change the colors to go along with your new video's theme. Stagnant channels are boring. I usually redesign mine about once a month. Doing so keeps things fresh and lets people know I'm still around and still investing time in the site, even if I haven't put up a new video that week—especially if I haven't put up a new video that week. But you should spend more time making videos and networking than you do pimping and re-pimping your channel.
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YouTube Partners, users who share in ad revenue dollars, have additional channel design options and elements that will be covered, along with other information about the YouTube Partnership Program, in Chapter 11.