Making Reels Covers People Actually Tap

A cover has to work at about the size of a postage stamp. That constraint decides everything: one focal point, hard contrast, and words short enough to read in the time it takes to scroll past.

Design for thumbnail size, not full screen

Before you export, shrink the cover on your own screen until it is roughly 120 pixels wide. If you cannot tell what it is, nothing else matters. Most covers fail here because they were designed at full size with three competing elements.

One face, one gesture

A face with a clear expression beats any graphic, because people scan for faces first. Crop tight enough that the expression is readable, and keep the eyes in the upper third. If there is no face, use one object filling most of the frame.

• Crop to head and shoulders, not full body
• Eyes in the upper third of the frame
• One subject only, no collages

Three words maximum

Type on a cover is a label, not a sentence. Three short words in a heavy weight, sitting in the darkest or emptiest part of the image, with enough contrast to survive compression. Keep type away from the edges where platform UI covers it.

• Heavy weight, large size, three words
• Place over the darkest region
• Keep 12% clear at the bottom for platform UI

Tip. If the words repeat what the image already shows, delete them. Covers are stronger with no text than with redundant text.

Sizes and safe areas

Design at 1080 by 1920 for Reels and Shorts, and remember the feed crops your cover to roughly 1:1 in the profile grid. Keep the face and the words inside the central square so the cover survives both crops.

Export once, at full size

Export as PNG if the cover has flat colour and type, JPG at maximum quality if it is mostly photographic. Upload the full-resolution file and let the platform compress it, never a screenshot.