Thumbnail / cover prompts
A cover image is the ad for the video. Its one job is to win the click in the grid — a fraction of a second, at the size of a thumbnail, next to a dozen competitors. This page is the prompt system for generating Pierce Law YouTube covers: on-brand photography with a real emotional expression, the heritage type lockup, one large bold hook, and a copy-paste prompt that assembles them. Splice a subject, generate, ship.
Anatomy of a Pierce cover
Every cover is the same three layers on a 16:9, 3840 × 2160 export canvas. Remotion composes it on a 1280 × 720 design grid and scales it 3× for export. The photo sits under a navy scrim on one side; the type lockup owns the other. Never center a headline over a busy face — split the frame.
| Layer | What it is | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Emotional photo | Always a face or two looking directly at the viewer, with a strong legible emotion tied to the video and the golden-hour grade. | Fills the frame; eyes stay unobstructed and a navy gradient scrim darkens the text side to ≥ 60%. |
| 2 · The question | The deliverable's complete question — 20 words or fewer — in bold Cormorant display, gold + cream, on the scrimmed side. | Biggest thing in the image. The type shrinks until the whole question fits its box (no minimum size); verify it remains legible at feed size. |
| 3 · Brand mark | The gold PL — compact lockup (the horizontal PIERCE LAW wordmark) in a corner, plus the gold lozenge on the kicker. | Small, consistent corner every time — the series signature. Reuse the brand asset; never AI-generate the mark. |
Cover ≠ in-video frame. The Video Assets rule "no faces in sharp focus" governs footage inside a video, where type must sit over calm negative space. A cover is the one deliberate exception: a single expressive face is the click magnet. Everything else — palette, type, restraint — stays identical to the system.
On-brand photography — with an expression
The grade never changes (warm documentary, golden hour, muted navy/cream/gold — the house look from Video Assets). What a cover adds is direct eye contact and one named, strong emotion. Pick the feeling the video resolves, then generate for that exact expression. Vague “emotional” prompts produce dead stock; name it.
| Emotion | Expression to prompt for | Video it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Grief, quiet | Older person meeting the lens, eyes glassy, mouth held tight — restrained grief, not theatrical sobbing. | The empathy / loss hook. |
| Overwhelm | Middle-aged adult meeting the lens over a paper-covered table, brow deeply furrowed, one hand in hair. | “Named the executor?” / paperwork. |
| Worry / dread | Person holding an official envelope and looking into the lens, eyes wide, jaw tight — clear bad-news tension. | Deadlines, creditor notices. |
| Relief | Direct eye contact, shoulders dropping, a visible exhale and relieved half-smile — the after. | Reassurance / “it’s simpler than you think.” |
| Resolve | Firm direct eye contact, set jaw, upright posture — calm, decided, ready to act. | “Here’s what to do” CTA covers. |
Cover photography prompt — splice one {EXPRESSION} from the table into the house grade:
Warm documentary editorial photograph of {SUBJECT}, looking directly into the
camera and showing {EXPRESSION}.
Natural golden-hour light, shallow depth of field, muted heritage palette of
deep navy, cream, and warm gold. Genuine, dignified, middle-class North
Carolina setting — never a posed stock smile. The subject sits on
the RIGHT third of the frame; the LEFT third is calm and darker, empty space
for a headline. Photorealistic, 16:9, high resolution, no text, no logos,
no watermark. Framing note. The prompt reserves the left third for type. If a generator ignores it, regenerate — don't shrink the headline to fit a face. Flip the side (subject left / copy right) only to alternate covers within a series.
Direct gaze is a hard gate. The subject's eyes meet the lens. Looking down at a document, at another person, or off-frame is an automatic reject — no matter how good the light or the emotion. Open the image and check the eyes before compositing; a downcast "reading" pose is the most common generator failure.
Reusable subject library — pick before you generate
Forty-four pre-approved cover photographs live in the TimDS media registry under thumb-subject-* keys (staged locally in media-local/thumbnail-subjects/). Each one already passes the gates: direct gaze, one named emotion, subject on the right third, calm dark left third, house grade. Every cover renders a library image. Pick the key whose emotion matches the feeling the video resolves and declare it in the topic's request.json → cover.key; when no library subject fits, generate a new photograph, QC it, register the keeper with the same key pattern, and only then reference it — photography never bypasses the library.
| Key | Emotion | Subject |
|---|---|---|
thumb-subject-grief-widow-kitchen | Quiet grief | Older widow at a kitchen table, framed photo beside her |
thumb-subject-grief-older-man-porch | Quiet grief | Older man on a porch at golden hour |
thumb-subject-worry-couple-letter | Worry | Middle-aged couple holding an official letter |
thumb-subject-worry-man-envelope | Worry / dread | Man in his 50s gripping a certified-mail envelope |
thumb-subject-worry-woman-phone | Worry | Woman holding a phone mid-bad-news |
thumb-subject-worry-farmer-barn | Worry | Farmer in work clothes in front of a barn |
thumb-subject-overwhelm-daughter-paperwork | Overwhelm | Adult daughter over a paper-covered table, hand in hair |
thumb-subject-overwhelm-man-boxes | Overwhelm | Middle-aged man among moving boxes in a family home |
thumb-subject-overwhelm-woman-ledger | Overwhelm | Woman at a desk with a ledger and stacked bills |
thumb-subject-confusion-couple-documents | Confusion | Couple at a dining table with legal documents spread out |
thumb-subject-confusion-son-laptop | Confusion | Adult son at a laptop with a furrowed brow |
thumb-subject-dread-man-courthouse | Dread | Man on courthouse steps, jaw tight |
thumb-subject-relief-widow-porch | Relief | Older widow on a porch, shoulders dropping, soft exhale |
thumb-subject-relief-couple-office | Relief | Couple in a law-office setting, relieved half-smiles |
thumb-subject-relief-woman-exhale | Relief | Woman mid-exhale, hand on chest |
thumb-subject-resolve-man-desk | Resolve | Man at a home desk, set jaw, papers squared |
thumb-subject-resolve-woman-window | Resolve | Woman by a bright window, firm and decided |
thumb-subject-resolve-older-couple | Resolve | Older couple side by side, calm and ready to act |
thumb-subject-hope-couple-homestead | Hope | Couple in front of a family homestead at golden hour |
thumb-subject-hope-grandmother-family | Hope | Grandmother with family softly blurred behind her |
thumb-subject-anxiety-widow-bills | Anxiety | Older widow beside a tall stack of bills, fingers to her lips |
thumb-subject-anxiety-man-phone-call | Anxiety | Man mid bad-news call, tight jaw |
thumb-subject-anxiety-couple-kitchen-night | Anxiety | Couple at a dim kitchen table late at night |
thumb-subject-anxiety-daughter-hallway | Anxiety | Adult daughter in a dim hallway, folder to her chest |
thumb-subject-anxiety-man-ledger-night | Anxiety | Man over a ledger under a single lamp at night |
thumb-subject-anxiety-couple-waiting-room | Anxiety | Older couple seated close in a wood-paneled waiting room |
thumb-subject-anxiety-woman-clutching-documents | Anxiety | Woman clutching documents to her chest |
thumb-subject-anxiety-executor-clock | Deadline anxiety | Man at a desk, wall clock blurred behind him |
thumb-subject-dread-woman-mailbox | Dread | Woman at a rural mailbox holding an official envelope |
thumb-subject-dread-man-rain-window | Dread | Man beside a rain-streaked window in a dim room |
thumb-subject-worry-son-empty-house | Worry | Adult son in his late parent's emptied living room |
thumb-subject-worry-older-couple-porch | Worry | Older couple close together on a farmhouse porch at dusk |
thumb-subject-conflict-siblings-land | Conflict | Two adult siblings a few feet apart at the edge of inherited farmland (partition / co-owner disputes) |
thumb-subject-worry-coowner-surveyor | Worry | Woman at a pasture fence, survey stakes behind her (property lines, appraisals) |
thumb-subject-resolve-guardian-daughter | Protective resolve | Adult daughter with her elderly mother seated behind her (guardianship) |
thumb-subject-worry-dementia-husband | Tender worry | Older husband, wife at the window behind him (capacity, guardianship) |
thumb-subject-dread-foreclosure-notice | Dread | Man at his front door holding an official notice (foreclosure, surplus funds) |
thumb-subject-hope-surplus-check | Cautious hope | Woman in a small-town bank lobby holding a sealed envelope (surplus funds) |
thumb-subject-anxiety-hospital-directive | Anxiety | Man in a hospital corridor holding a folder (health care POA, DNR, directives) |
thumb-subject-resolve-selling-parents-home | Resolve | Man on the steps of his late parents' home, sign post in the yard (selling the house) |
thumb-subject-confusion-clerk-counter | Confusion | Woman at the courthouse clerk's counter with blank forms (AOC forms, records) |
thumb-subject-worry-rental-landlord | Worry | Man outside a small brick rental duplex with keys (inherited rentals, LLCs) |
thumb-subject-grief-young-widow-child | Quiet grief | Young widow on a porch swing, child beside her (wrongful death) |
thumb-subject-anxiety-mother-separation | Anxiety | Mother at a kitchen table, child coloring behind her (family law) |
Why a library. Generation is the least deterministic step in the pipeline — the library turns "generate a photo and hope the gaze lands" into "pick the matching emotion." It also keeps the channel's faces consistent across a series. Register new keepers with
npm run timds -- assets add media-local/thumbnail-subjects/<file> --key thumb-subject-<emotion>-<subject>. To use one, declare it in the topic's request.json and production.json by its thumb-subject-* key. timds video prepare <slug> stages the registered image for the cover composition, and npm run check:video rejects undeclared keys.On-brand text — large, bold, few words
The type is the same Editorial Heritage lockup as everywhere else: Cormorant Garamond display, gold as ink, one emphasized phrase per cover. Every cover — 16:9 long-form and 9:16 Short — carries its complete question. The type shrinks until the block fits its box and wraps with text-wrap: pretty so lines stay even; it must never enter the subject's face zone.
| Property | Spec |
|---|---|
| Headline length | The complete question, capped at 20 words (and 180 characters), rephrased truthfully while preserving the video's actual decision point, ending in a question mark. Never a teaser. The production contract rejects anything else on either cover. |
| Headline font & size | Cormorant Garamond, 700 weight (bold) — the heaviest cut of the display family, because the thumbnail is the one surface where the type competes in a feed. Size adapts to question length on both 16:9 and 9:16 covers: it starts at ~120px on the 1280 design grid and steps down in 4px increments until the wrapped block fits its box — there is no minimum. Two-tone: cream for the setup, gold for one concluding phrase — never more than one gold phrase. Wrap only within the declared copy-safe side and never cover the subject's face. |
| Kicker font & size | Inter, 600 weight, ~30px on the design grid / ~90px at export, uppercase, letter-spaced ~0.13em (e.g. PROBATE, PLAINLY), gold. Sits above the headline with the gold lozenge. |
| Brand mark size | The PL — compact lockup (the horizontal PIERCE LAW wordmark, pl-logo-yellow.svg), ~260px wide on the design grid / ~780px at export, ~92% opacity, bottom-left corner — a legible series signature, not a faint watermark. Reuse the brand asset; never AI-generate it (see the brand plates spec). |
| Contrast | Text lives on the ≥ 60% navy-scrimmed side. Cream on navy ≈ 15:1; gold on navy ≈ 7:1. Both clear AA at display size. |
| Never | No shortened teaser in place of the question, no drop shadows-as-decoration, no third color, no all-caps serif, no gradient text. Gold is flat ink. |
Adaptive sizing gate. The complete question is mandatory, and readability and face safety remain hard requirements. Use the largest size that fits the declared copy zone, wrap deliberately, and reject any cover that collides with eyes, mouth, logo, or footer watermarks.
The question — complete, truthful, ≤ 20 words
The cover carries the full question the video answers, sharpened so the human stake is immediate. It should make a specific person think "wait — does that apply to me?" — and stay inside NC Bar 7.1 (no guarantees, no "best"). Follow this exact procedure every time:
| Step | Do this |
|---|---|
| 1 · Start from the article | Take the article's core question verbatim. For the long-form cover this is also the video's intro-card question (publishing.json → introQuestion); each Short's cover uses that Short's own question. |
| 2 · Keep the decision point | Identify what the viewer actually has to decide or fears — the house, the deadline, who inherits, whose money — and keep it in the sentence. |
| 3 · Rephrase to ≤ 20 words | Rewrite in plain, direct second person where it's truthful ("you," "your parent's"). Count the words and end with a question mark — the production contract rejects 21+ words, 181+ characters, or a non-question, and the render fails. |
| 4 · Compliance pass | No outcome promises, no "best/#1", curiosity not alarm. |
Worked rephrasings — pattern-match these; the count is whitespace-delimited words:
| Article title | Cover question | Words |
|---|---|---|
| Can estate creditors make beneficiaries return bank account funds after a parent dies? | Can estate creditors make you return money from your parent's bank account? | 12 ✓ |
| What happens to a house, vehicle, trailer, and land when one parent leaves everything to a spouse who then dies without a will? | Who gets the house and land when the second parent dies without a will? | 14 ✓ |
| What should I do if I received money from a deceased parent's bank account but the estate may still owe debts? | You got money from a parent's account. What if the estate still owes debts? | 15 ✓ |
| How does a revocable trust work for a married couple? | How does a revocable trust work for a married couple? | 10 ✓ (already fits) |
The failure mode to avoid: shortening the question into a teaser ("Owe it back?") or cramming a 30-word title onto the cover unedited. The first hides what the video is about in the feed; the second shrinks the type past legibility. Keep the whole question, trim the words.
Compliance: covers are attorney advertising. No "best/#1", no outcome guarantees, no fear-mongering beyond the true stakes. Curiosity, not alarm.
The output — one copy-paste prompt
This is what you actually paste into an image model. “Create a video” explicitly authorizes generation of the thumbnail photograph. Generate the photograph without text or logos, then let Remotion assemble the scrim, hook, and real mark into a 3840 × 2160 cover.
Create a photorealistic 16:9 thumbnail photograph at 3840 x 2160 for a law-firm explainer video.
PHOTO (right two-thirds): Warm documentary editorial photograph of
{SUBJECT}, looking directly into the camera and showing the strong emotion
{EXPRESSION}. Natural golden-hour light, shallow
depth of field, muted heritage palette — deep navy, cream, warm gold.
Genuine and dignified, no posed stock smile. Photorealistic.
SCRIM: darken the LEFT third with a deep navy (#0A1729) gradient to at
least 60% so text is legible.
REMOTION COMPOSITE (do not generate this text or logo in the photograph):
• Kicker: "{KICKER}" — Inter, 600 weight, ~30px, uppercase, letter-
spaced (~0.13em), gold #C2A15A, with a small 45°-rotated gold
square to its left.
• Headline: "{HEADLINE}" — Cormorant Garamond, 700 weight (bold),
the complete question in no more than 20 words, adaptively sized down
from ~120px cap height until it fits and wrapped inside the copy-safe
zone, cream #F4EFE4 with the final punch word in gold #C2A15A.
• Leave the bottom-left corner clear — the gold Pierce Law "PL —
compact" lockup (horizontal PIERCE LAW wordmark) is composited in
afterward from the brand asset (never draw a logo).
STYLE: flat gold as ink (no gradients, glows, or metallic sheen), sharp
corners, heritage law-firm restraint. No other text, no busy graphics. Worked example — probate-the-name-v2.mp4
The flagship explainer "The Name" opens on loss and turns on property that remains titled to someone after death. Its cover asks the complete viewer question over a grief expression. Here are the fields, then the full assembled prompt to paste.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
{SUBJECT} | an older widow at a kitchen table, a folded letter and a framed photo in front of her |
{EXPRESSION} | quiet grief — direct eye contact, eyes glassy, mouth held tight, one hand resting near the photo |
{KICKER} | PROBATE, PLAINLY |
{HEADLINE} | What happens to a parent's property when their name remains on it after death? |
Assembled prompt — ready to paste:
Create a photorealistic 16:9 thumbnail photograph at 3840 x 2160 for a law-firm explainer video.
PHOTO (right two-thirds): Warm documentary editorial photograph of an older
widow at a kitchen table, a folded letter and a framed photo in front of her,
looking directly into the camera and showing quiet grief — eyes glassy, mouth
held tight, one hand resting near the photo. Natural golden-hour light, shallow depth of field, muted
heritage palette — deep navy, cream, warm gold. Genuine and dignified, no
posed stock smile. Photorealistic.
SCRIM: darken the LEFT third with a deep navy (#0A1729) gradient to at least
60% so text is legible.
REMOTION COMPOSITE (do not generate this text or logo in the photograph):
• Kicker: "PROBATE, PLAINLY" — Inter, 600 weight, ~30px, uppercase,
letter-spaced (~0.13em), gold #C2A15A, with a small 45°-rotated gold
square to its left.
• Headline: "What happens to a parent's property when their name remains
on it after death?" — Cormorant Garamond, 700 weight (bold), adaptively
sized down until it fits and wrapped inside the copy-safe zone, cream
#F4EFE4 with "their name remains on it after death?" in gold #C2A15A.
• Leave the bottom-left corner clear — the gold Pierce Law "PL —
compact" lockup (horizontal PIERCE LAW wordmark) is composited in
afterward from the brand asset (never draw a logo).
STYLE: flat gold as ink (no gradients, glows, or metallic sheen), sharp
corners, heritage law-firm restraint. No other text, no busy graphics. Keep the question, test the phrasing. A/B tests may truthfully rephrase the complete question within the 20-word cap, but may not replace it with a teaser. Palette, type, expression, and mark stay fixed so the channel reads as one series. The vertical cousin of this cover (for Shorts) is built in code on the Shorts page.
Do & don't
Do
- Render every cover from the subject library; generate only to add a missing emotion to it.
- Name one emotion and generate for that exact expression.
- Verify the eyes meet the lens before compositing — an averted gaze is an automatic reject.
- Put the complete question on every cover, 20 words or fewer, with one gold punch phrase.
- Split the frame: subject one side, scrimmed type on the other.
- Reuse the copy-paste prompt so every cover shares the palette and mark.
- Shrink your draft to 210 px and check it still reads.
Don't
- Don't shorten the question into a teaser, and don't paste a 30-word title unedited — trim to 20 words.
- Don't let adaptive type enter the face-safe zone.
- Don't center a headline over a busy face — it disappears in the grid.
- Don't add a third color, a glow, or gradient text — gold is flat ink.
- Don't use a posed stock smile or an off-camera gaze; both weaken the viewer connection.
- Don't promise outcomes or use "best/#1" — see Compliance.