A Little More About Hammad Customs

I kicked off Hammad Customs back in 2021, not in thumbnails, but in the gaming niche. I was helping Twitch streamers stand out with overlays, emotes, and channel branding, basically the little things that made their channels feel alive. At that point, I wasn’t thinking about “niching down.” I just wanted to design everything. Logos, panels, banners, thumbnails, if it had something to do with design, I wanted to try it.

That openness turned out to be the best decision I ever made. It let me experiment across tons of formats, build real skills fast, relationships, and connections with creators across different platforms and niches, and this allowed me to figure out what I actually enjoyed (and what clients really valued). Eventually, that path pulled me toward YouTube thumbnails, where creativity meets strategy and where one good design can change a video’s success overnight. What hooked me even more was the analytics behind it. Seeing how a small change in color, text, or layout could move a video’s CTR by whole percentages fascinated me. I started treating thumbnails more like experiments, where the data tells you if your creative instincts and understanding of human psychology were right or if you need to adjust.

It wasn’t all smooth. Early on, I struggled with revisions after revisions, really tough clients, and figuring out pricing. Some days I would spend on endless revisions. Sometimes I’d overdeliver for way less than what my work was worth. But those struggles forced me to learn how to set boundaries, how to communicate like a professional, and how to make design not just look good but actually perform.

The biggest lesson I’ve carried from this journey is that you shouldn’t niche down too early. Everyone preaches “pick a market you like and only focus on that,” but I think that limits creativity and growth. When you’re just starting, you don’t even know what you enjoy yet, so boxing yourself into one niche from day one is a trap. By experimenting across different styles, industries, and platforms, you build real skills, broaden your portfolio, and open more doors. That diversity not only helps you adapt when industries shift but also lets you connect dots between niches in ways others can’t. For me, all that experimenting eventually led to YouTube thumbnails, where I found the perfect mix of creativity and strategy, but I never would’ve landed there if I had forced myself into a niche too soon.

Now, Hammad Customs is more than a one-man-agency. It’s proof that experimenting first and niching later isn’t just ok, it might be the smartest way to build a creative career.

To Learn More about Hammad Customs:

Hammad Customs (Website)
Hammad Customs (X/Twitter)

© 2025 Muhammad Hammad