UPLOAD

2560 × 1440, 16:9, under 6 MBOne file. YouTube derives every other size from it — there is no per-device upload, which is the whole reason the safe area exists.

1546 × 423

The only zone on every deviceCentred, 60.4% of the width and 29.4% of the height. Every word and the mark go here. Nothing else is guaranteed to be seen by anybody.

1855 × 423

TabletThe first band of wings. Pattern and colour — never a word you need read.

2560 × 423

Desktop, maximisedThe widest strip most viewers ever see. It is a bonus, not a canvas.

2560 × 1440

TVThe full file, seen by the smallest audience. Design for it last: a banner that only works on a television is a banner that works for nobody.

AVATAR

Overlaps the bannerOn desktop the channel photo sits below-left of the banner and on mobile it overlaps the bottom-left. Keep that corner of the safe box empty.

Design the 1546 × 423 box first, then extend the background outward. The common failure is the reverse — a composition laid out across the full 2560 × 1440, which looks correct in the design tool and arrives on a phone cropped to its own middle third, with the title half gone. If the banner does not work as a 1546 × 423 rectangle on its own, it does not work.