Sam McCraw
Are you looking to create some professional looking Twitch panels for your channel but don’t have the design experience needed to create your own from scratch?
Well, you’re in luck.
In this article, we’re going to show you how you can easily create Twitch panels for your channel with no experience with design tools, like Photoshop, needed.
Jump to a specific section:
- Overview
- Creating a Twitch panel with Placeit
- Creating a Twitch panel with Canva
- Creating a Twitch panel with EmotesCreator
- Alternative tools (Free & Premium)
- Other good resources
- Using Photoshop
#1 Overview
These days there are plenty of online tools that help you to create incredible-looking designs without needing any design skills or background.
Three such tools are Placeit, Canva, and EmotesCreator, and we’re going to take you through how to create Twitch panels with these tools.
Before we get started there are a couple of alternative options for Twitch panel designs that might be a better fit for you if you don’t want to create Twitch panels yourself using online design tools:
- You could hire a designer from Fiverr to create them for you
- You could buy pre-made templates and packs from a site like OWN3D
What are Twitch panels and why use them?
Twitch panels are graphics that appear on the about page of your Twitch channel.
Typically they’re used to segment information about you and make it easy for channel visitors to get to know you and your stream.
You can see an example of Twitch panels in action in the image below.
Having high-quality Twitch panels helps your channel provide all the info visitors could need but is also part of building a consistent brand to set you apart from other Twitch streamers.
Here are some of the most commonly used Twitch panels:
- About (General information about you and your stream)
- Donate (Links to a place where people can donate to support the channel)
- Schedule (When people can tune in to watch your live streams)
- Rules (Guidelines and rules for your stream viewers)
- Merch (Links to your mech store)
- Social profiles (Links to social profiles – Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
- Equipment (Info about the gear and equipment you use for your streams)
What makes a good Twitch panel?
When you’re creating your own panels, we recommend sticking to the following guidelines:
- Keep them simple and tidy
- Keep them on brand (colors, fonts, imagery, etc.)
- Add plenty of good info (under your panels)
Twitch panel size, dimensions, format:
Make sure when creating your Twitch panels to stick to the ideal specifications:
- Dimensions: No larger than 320px wide and 600px high
- File size: 1 MB max
- Format: Can be JPG or PNG
Here are some more Twitch panel size guidelines and tips to keep you right.
#2 Creating Twitch panels with Placeit
Placeit is a template-based online design tool that is incredibly easy to use. All you need to do is choose one of their pre-made designs and customize it to your liking.
They offer plenty of templates for streamers such as logos, banners, stream screens, overlays, YouTube templates, and of course a Twitch panel maker too.
Step 1 – Choose a template:
Navigate to the Twitch panels section on Placeit, browse through them, and select a template that you like (there’s a lot to choose from):
There are a few things you can do here to make your search easier:
- Sort the templates in order of ‘Best Selling’ to have the most popular templates at the top. This option is under the drop-down menu on the left sidebar:
- If you like any of the templates you can ‘Favorite’ them. ‘Favorite’ a template by hovering on it and clicking the heart icon at the top right of the thumbnail (you’ll need to be signed into a Placeit account to do this):
- To see all the templates you’ve ‘favorited’ hover over your username at the top right side of the screen and click on ‘My Favorites’:
- If you’re looking for 100% free panel templates you can also get these on Placeit. Again go to the drop-down menu on the left sidebar and click on the ‘free’ option to put all the free templates at the top of the list:
All the free templates have a ‘FREE’ ribbon at the top left side of their thumbnail.
When you’ve got your chosen template just click on it to begin editing it.
Step 2 – Customize your template:
This is roughly how the editor will look when it loads (there may be some slightly different options depending on the Twitch panel template you choose):
If you scroll down the page you’ll see some template presets (different versions of your chosen panel template) and also similar templates to the one you’ve chosen:
Back up to the editor, on the left side you have a few customization options to go through:
- You can edit the text fields – including the text color and font type
- Add additional text fields
- Click the eye icon to hide a text field
- Upload your own image or logo
Any changes you make will take effect instantly.
If you want to save your edits and come back to them later you can do so, but you’ll need to create a Placeit account (free signup) to have this option.
You just click on the ‘Save Draft’ at the top right of the template editor and this will save it to your account for you to come back to later.
On the right side of the editor there are some more options:
- You can customize the:
- Icon graphic & color (You can even upload your own if you want)
- Add additional graphics
- Badge design & color
- Background color
- Background image (search and choose for a new one or upload your own)
In terms of the actual elements on the design, the text and icon elements can be moved around and resized.
Step 3 – Download your template:
When you’ve completed your customizations and are happy with your design it’s time to download it.
There are a couple of options, you can do one of the following:
- Buy an individual template -Twitch panels cost $2.95
- Get an unlimited subscription for $14.95 (monthly) or $89.69 (annual) which lets you download as many designs as you want.
- If it’s a free template you can download the template completely for free, all you will need is a free Placeit account
Twitch panels we made with Placeit:
We made a full set of incredible-looking Twitch panels (we have a monthly subscription so we can download as many as we needed).
It took about 10 minutes in total:
Commercial usage of the templates:
Placeit has thankfully created a page that outlines their license in a ‘human-readable’ format so everything is pretty clear.
Anything you create on Placeit is copyright-free and can be used for commercial purposes. You can even sell and trademark the designs you make on Placeit!
Obviously, this means you can use any Twitch panels you create on your channel with no problems.
Check out the full details of the Placeit license here.
What else you can do on Placeit:
If you’re a streamer then Placeit has even more to offer you. You can easily create the following with their tool:
- Logos and animated logos
- Overlays
- Offline banners
- Starting soon screens
- Chanel banners
- Intros
- Merch designs
- And so much more
Click here to see all the Twitch templates on Placeit.
Conclusion:
If you want an easy way to quickly create incredible-looking panels for your Twitch channel then Placeit is one of the best options out there.
We’d say the only downside with the tool is that it is a little bit basic in terms of the customization options and resizing some of the design elements is a bit tricky at times.
However, the huge number and quality of the Twitch panel templates they offer are great (which is why we featured them in our stream schedule makers article) so you’re bound to find a lot of designs that have the look and feel you’re going for with your stream!
#3 Creating Twitch panels with Canva
Canva is an online design tool for non-designers that has a huge variety of different templates and tools to help you create incredible designs with ease.
With Canva you can also create your own designs by modifying existing templates that they have provided but we’re going to show you how to create Twitch panel designs from scratch because it’s super easy to do in Canva.
We won’t show you all the different ways to use Canva, so if you need a full run-through we recommend watching this video.
Step 1 – Click ‘Create a design’:
Go to the homepage on Canva and click the ‘Create a design’ button at the top right. Then click the ‘Custom dimensions’ option and put in 640x200px (or whatever dimensions you want your panels to be), and click ‘Create a new design’.
Step 2 – Create your Twitch panels:
On the left side of the editor click on ‘Elements’, go to the ‘Shapes’ category and find a shape that fits with the look you want for your panel:
There are plenty of elements you can use to create a great-looking Twitch panel. Not all of the elements on Canva are free to use however, some are for Canva Pro users only.
Note: To see only the free elements on Canva click the filter button in the search bar and select free elements only:
To ensure your twitch panel is the correct dimensions, stretch it out to the edges of the canvas (640 x 200 px) and this will ensure that it is the correct dimensions:
Once you’re happy with your Twitch panel design, click on the duplicate page icon to create your next panel and repeat the same process until you’ve created your full Twitch panel set:
Everything in the designs we have done so far was 100% free to use, minus a couple of the icons which are only available to Canva Pro users.
However, you can easily find those icons elsewhere and upload them to Canva if you want them for your design.
Step 3 – Download your designs:
When you’ve completed all the customizations and are happy with your final Twitch panel designs it’s time to download them.
You can select the pages you want to use and download these together as a zip file. We recommend you download them as PNGs to get the best possible quality:
When it comes to downloading your designs you have more options with a Canva Pro account (you can try it for free for 30 days) such as being able to compress your files, making the file sizes significantly smaller.
If you’ve used any premium elements you’ll either have to pay for them individually or subscribe to Canva Pro to get unlimited access.
This is the pricing breakdown for Canva Pro:
Twitch panels we made with Canva:
We made another full set of good-looking Twitch panels with Canva.
Again it took us roughly 10 minutes in total:
Commercial usage of the templates:
This is the breakdown for Canva license:
What else you can do on Canva:
When it comes to creating more stream designs you can a lot on Canva including:
- Creating a Twitch logo (one of the best gaming logo makers)
- Offline banners (here’s how to make an offline banner on Canva)
- Channel banners (one of the best Twitch channel banner makers)
- Alerts
- Twitch overlay (a good Twitch overlay maker)
- Twitch sub badges (again, one of the best Twitch sub badge makers)
Conclusion:
Canva is another incredible option for creating Twitch panels for your channel.
It takes a bit more time and efforts than using Placeit’s but the customization options are far superior. So if you want to customize every aspect of your Twitch panels (and create incredible designs for free) then Canva is a good option for you.
#4 Creating Twitch panels with EmotesCreator
EmotesCreator is another online design tool but it is specifically aimed at design creation for streamers.
They have several tools including a Twitch emote maker, sub badge maker and most recently they added their Twitch panel maker.
Their tool is so simple to use and creates good-looking Twitch panels so we felt like it was worth including in this article.
Step 1 – Go to their panel maker:
Go to their Twitch panel maker, go through all the various tabs (Border, Background, Icons, Fonts), and select the design elements you want for your panel:
Step 2 – Choose your colors:
Choose the colors for your Twitch panel elements. You can also choose custom colors by clicking on the color picker icon on the right-hand side:
Step 3 – Save your design:
Save your Twitch panel design, this will take you to a page that allows you to add the design to your cart:
If you want to make more Twitch panels you can continue shopping, create some more, and add them to your cart.
Step 4 – Purchase your designs:
When you’ve created all your panel designs, navigate to the checkout. You can pay via credit card or PayPal:
Pricing:
These are the current Twitch panel prices on EmotesCreator:
- Individual Twitch panel designs: $0.99
- Twitch panels packs: $9.99
Conclusion:
EmotesCreator is another simple but good quality tool for creating Twitch panels for your channel.
It’s so easy to use. So if you’re looking for the quickest and easiest options when it comes to creating your Twitch panels you should check them out.
#5 Alternative Tools
If you check out Placeit, Canva, or EmotesCreator and they’re not quite what you’re after there are a few alternatives that we also recommend.
We tested out a lot of tools when we created our ‘Twitch Panel Makers‘ article, so we recommend checking that out for alternative options.
Free alternatives:
When it comes to creating your own Twitch panels for free there are a few good alternatives. You can create panel designs using tools from Visuals By Impulse, Nerd or Die, and WDFlat.
#6 Other resources
Sites to buy premade Twitch panel designs and packs:
Video on how to add panels to your Twitch channel:
#7 Using Photoshop
If you want to use Photoshop to create your panels here’s a good video showing you how:
Final thoughts
So, there you have it, that’s how you can quickly, easily, and affordably create high-quality Twitch panels for your channel using online design tools.
No matter what your skill level when it comes to design you will have no trouble creating something that looks great, and since Placeit, Canva, and EmotesCreator have so many templates and options there’s no reason why you can’t create something that looks incredible.
Enjoy creating! Oh, and if you have any questions, comments, or have suggestions for other awesome Twitch panel tools, leave a comment below!
