The Washington Post Podcast team launched a YouTube channel in 2025. Their videos were previously housed on The Post’s main YouTube page and featured thumbnails that were visually inconsistent. Many episodes just used their square show art in lieu of custom images that could draw in more viewers.

I designed a thumbnail template suite for the new account, which was necessary to achieve a consistent visual brand identity across all the shows. I spent weeks balancing input from multiple stakeholders, working to determine what to include in each show’s thumbnail.

After finalizing the new template designs, I collaborated with a developer to add a capability in our social card generator tool that allows editors to create cards without the help of a designer. The Post Reports team now creates all their YouTube episode thumbnails with this tool.