YouTube thumbnails

Design thumbnails that survive the mobile feed, test them so the winner is a lesson and not a coin flip, and write every outcome back to the channel's wiki so the next thumbnail is evidence-led. A thumbnail you cannot learn from is half wasted.

The loop

This skill runs a closed loop, not a one-off design pass:

1. Design 2-3 candidate concepts that differ on exactly ONE testable axis.
2. Test them in YouTube Studio "Test & Compare".
3. Log the outcome to 02-DOCS/wiki/youtube/thumbnail-experiments.md.
4. Learn: mine the log into thumbnail-patterns.md (what wins on THIS channel) and let that pick the next concept.

The reason for the discipline: Test & Compare hands you a winner, never a reason. One varied axis per round is what turns a winner into a transferable rule.