Thumbnails

humbnails and sketches are an important part of designing any media product. Not only do they allow you to quickly formulate ideas, but they are also actually required by other teams in the production process. The photographer for example, would like to see a sketch or description of what you want before they go out and take some photographs. In this tutorial you will learn how to create thumbnails.

Before we start, click on this link and look at some real examples of how sketches have been transformed into real digital illustrations.

What are Thumbnails?

Thumbnails are very small images. They give you an indication of what the product looks like but without any fine details. You have seen thumbnails many times before. They occur on websites that showcase a small image of the product you are buying, on Google images and within your computer drive showing you a small thumbnail of the file. In Media, a thumbnail is a very small, quick, hand drawn idea of your media product. The point of them is that you think of as many ideas as you can without getting caught up by whether or not the idea is any good. You can then look at all your ideas and decide on which one (or parts of a few) would be worth creating.

Credit to Tonya Skinner of the Facebook group Fun Photoshop teachers group for the link to the fabulous front cover examples.

Task 1 Draw quick thumbnail ideas

Watch the video above before following the instructions below.

Using small square pieces of paper (or a pre prepared thumbnail template), draw out as many different ideas for the media product you are going to create.

You MUST use real examples of the media product you are going to create to give you inspiration. For example, you could do a Google image search for magazine front covers, or clear here to see some fabulous front cover examples.

On your thumbnails make sure you you show the location of:

  • Any images,

  • Titles/other text

  • Shapes etc

Note - thumbnails are quick small sketches of the product you are going to create, but they are not vague! You should show exactly where all the main parts of the product will be located.

WAGOLL

Magazine Front Cover Thumbnails
Magazine Inside Page Thumbnails

Task 2 Adding brief notes

Looking at your thumbnails, start to identify which one(s) you like the best. It could be parts of one and parts of another. Start to add basic notes such as:

  • Colour choices

  • Font styles

  • Which bits you like the best and why?

  • Which one would engage your audience or meet the purpose most effectively and why?

  • Comment on; representation, genre, themes, narrative

WAGOLL

Logo Thumbnails