YouTube channel art is a 2560 banner, not a channel trailer

The SKU is 2560×1440 art with the safe-center wordmark intact. Seedream holds the type. /for/youtubers is the person. A generated trailer still is a random frame, not the banner.

Channel art is a still YouTube crops. Desktop, TV, tablet, and phone each keep a different slice of the same 2560×1440 file. The only region every device is guaranteed to show is a center band about 1546×423. The wordmark has to live there. A trailer is a video setting. Grabbing a frame from a generated trailer and stretching it to banner size is how the type dies in the crop. Generate the banner. Do not screenshot a clip.

2560×1440 with the safe-center wordmark

YouTube’s channel-art canvas is 2560×1440. That ratio is 16:9. The safe center is the contract: name, handle, one short line. Edges are atmosphere. They will be cropped. Putting the channel name in the top-left of a 21:9 generate is how mobile viewers get a texture and no name.

Quote the string. "RIVER CUT LAB" is a brief. “A cinematic YouTube banner with my channel name” is how you get a plausible title you cannot ship. Do not generate a photoreal host as the banner. A constructed face in the crop is a likeness you probably do not have. The banner is packaging, not a talking head.

Text-to-image is the door. 16:9 matches the canvas. Generate wide. Proof at 100% in the center band. Then size to 2560×1440. A model will not emit those exact pixels because you named the spec.

Seedream holds the type

Seedream 5.0 Pro is ByteDance’s flagship text-to-image row: 7 credits, native text rendering in 14 languages, dense layouts listed. Aspects include 21:9, 16:9, 4:3, 1:1, 3:4, and 9:16. Qualities include 2K. Audio is empty — this is a still. 16:9 is the banner job. 21:9 is a letterbox you will crop badly. 9:16 is a Short, not channel art.

Quote the wordmark. Proof the center at 100%. One wrong character is a regenerate. Seedream is the row when the banner is a designed frame you can still read after YouTube crops the edges. There is no duration on this slug. “Then the camera pushes into the studio” is a sentence this row cannot honour.

Keep the type in the safe center: wordmark middle, no edge titles. If the generate puts the name in a corner, throw it out. Cropping a misspelled lockup does not make it a banner.

Ideogram is the lockup; the agent is the door

Eight to twelve words that must read at header size can also go to Ideogram V4: text-to-image, 6 credits, posters and logos with accurate text rendering listed. Aspects 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3, 3:4. Quote the string. Proof it like a press check. Cut it as a lockup, or composite it onto a 16:9 plate. Do not send a photoreal scene model a headline and hope the letters survive the 1546-pixel band.

Ideogram is the specialist when the art is the lettering. Seedream is the specialist when the art is a dense layout that still has to spell. Neither row is a trailer generator. You size after.

Generate an image from text is the named agent job: you describe the still, the agent asks about style, aspect ratio, and count, then picks an image model (or uses the one you name). Cost is priced per model, shown before you confirm. Name 16:9. Name Seedream 5.0 Pro or Ideogram V4. Do not use this capability as a stand-in for “make my channel trailer.” A trailer is video. This job returns stills.

A generated trailer still is a random frame

YouTube’s channel trailer is a video you set on the channel page. It is not art. A text-to-video take of “cinematic channel trailer, subscribe energy” will invent a room, a face, and a title card that is wrong in every crop. Grabbing a frame from that take and uploading it as 2560×1440 does not make it channel art.

/for/youtubers is the person: Shorts as a funnel into long-form, behind-the-scenes, episode teasers. That page is the creator. This listing is the header file. Do not rewrite the person page as a banner brief.

Do not generate a talking host and screenshot the first frame as art. Do not put the wordmark in a corner. Do not use 9:16 because Shorts are the growth loop. Shorts are not the banner. A banner does not have to move or talk. An intro sting is a two-to-four-second motion of a finished lockup, after the still is signed. It is not a substitute for the still.

Open the file, crop to a 1546×423 center, and read the wordmark. If the name is gone, you made a trailer frame.

FAQ

Can I grab a frame from a generated trailer and upload it as the banner?

No. A trailer still is a random frame. Channel art is a 2560×1440 still with the wordmark in the ~1546×423 safe center. Generate the banner as a still. Size it. Do not screenshot a clip.

Why Seedream 5.0 Pro instead of a photoreal hero model?

Because the job is type in a dense 16:9 layout, 7 credits, 2K quality listed, native text rendering. A photoreal scene model will give you atmosphere and word-shaped noise. Proof the center at 100%.

Is this the same job as the YouTubers /for page?

No. /for/youtubers is the person and the funnel into long-form. This page is the header file. Do not borrow a talking-host brief and crop it into art.

Does the agent pick 2560×1440 if I say “YouTube banner”?

It asks about aspect and model; it does not secretly emit YouTube’s pixel spec. Name 16:9. Name Seedream or Ideogram. Size the approved still to 2560×1440 with the wordmark in the safe center.