Over the last few years, live streaming has become a prominent trend. One of the underlying factors that make your live stream professional and visually appealing is graphics. To make the broadcast look more polished and provide viewers with essential information, graphic elements in your live stream play a vital role. To build strong brand loyalty, attract new viewers, and create a loyal and engaged audience, it’s truly important to add the right graphics to your live stream in the form of stream overlays.
With OneStream Live Studio, adding overlays just takes a few clicks. Whether you wnat your own visuals on the stream or use OneStream’s built-in overlays, you have complete control to create a unique on-screen identity. Make all your future streams memorable by sticking to OneStream Live’s easy-to-use overlay features.
- Stream overlays are essential for making live streams visually engaging and professional.
- OneStream Studio allows you to add logos, banners, tickers, and guest names seamlessly.
- You can create custom overlays using tools like Canva, VistaCreate, Stencil, and Snappa.
- OBS stream overlays can include static graphics, animated visuals, or BRB screens to enhance audience engagement.
- Choosing the right overlay style, from minimalism to futuristic themes, keeps your content fresh and appealing.
What are Stream Overlays?
Stream overlays are the graphic layer—logos, frames, and alerts—that sit on top of your raw video feed to add context and branding. Stream overlays include:
- Logos
- Chat Overlays
- Real-Time Alerts
- Social Pop-ups
- QR Codes
- Goals Overlay
Why do Stream Overlays Matter?
In 2025, viewers have short attention spans and you have a few seconds to play your game. That’s exactly what overlays can do: they give your viewers an instant context and stop them from scrolling away. Specifically for new viewers, these graphics create a consistent, recognizable identity.
Here are some important factors that should be considered while crafting stream overlays:
- They should guide viewers’ attention.
- Don’t cover more than 20% of your screen. Viewers come for the content so overlays should just complement, not dominate.
- In 2025, most of the audience is watching content through their phone, so make sure overlay text is readable on mobile too.
- Every element of the overlay should define the stream’s purpose.
- Overlay graphics should depict the brand identity.
Customize Your Stream with OneStream Studio Overlays
OneStream Live Studio provides amazing features to add professional overlays to your live streams. The studio is designed to be user-friendly and anyone without any technical experience can customize their stream on-screen visuals. Also, unlike OBS, which depends on your computer processing power, OneStream Live handles all the rendering in the cloud, means you don’t need any powerful hardware either.
Add a logo to describe your brand uniquely
The logo is the most crucial part of the brand strategy. People reckon with the brands via brand logos. The moment you see a golden arch M, you know it’s McDonald’s.
- Max size: 5 MB
- Allowed file: PNG only
- The logo resolution must be less than 1920 x 1080p
Add a banner to grab attention
Add a banner to your stream for a lasting impression on your audience, enhance engagement and catch attention.
Adding a ticker to share important information
Tickers are ideal for displaying important information or reminders but they work best they’re used strategically. Dont just use them for updates, make them your high-impact communicate tool. You can use them to highlight your CTAs such as “Subscribe” “Donate Now” or “Follow on Instagram”, etc.
Add display names to introduce your guests
Displaying the names of your live stream guests will help the audience better engage with you all. You can control the appearance of participants’ names on the layout using OneStream Studio.
Read: How Overlay works on your stream with OneStream Live Studio?
Stream Overlay Ideas in 2025
As a streamer, you need to stay updated with the trends to keep your followers engaged. What worked in 2020 may not work in 2025. So, we’ve researched some fresh stream overlays that streamers are using in 2025.
Immersive HUDs
These overlays are designed with popular games in mind, like Dota 2, Valorant, Call of Duty, etc. They make your stream more immersive with subtle animations and WebM motion elements, which viewers keep engaged for extended periods.
Mobile-First Minimalism
Considering that most of the viewers come from mobile phones, using oversized graphics can instantly kill the retention. Minimalist overlays work best for such viewers because they come with breathable layouts and easy-to-read text.
Retro Pixel Art
This one is a versatile pick, you will be seeing it on all kind of streams. Be it tech and coding streams, creative streams for art and animation and even on live gaming.
Chrome & Liquid Metal
Liquid and metal overlays are the trending visuals. Their glossy reflections and metallic textures give your stream a premium look. If you want depth in their visuals, go with these because they add depth without overwhelming.
Make your Own Overlays
You have quite a few tools at your disposal to make your own custom overlays:
Canva
Canva is one of the most popular graphic tools for creating powerful overlays. You can use the free or paid plan, as per your requirements, and use the built-in templates to create visually appealing overlays. You can use the templates or design your own graphics and then export in transparent PNG or WebM and upload directly into OneStream Live studio.
VistaCreate
Formerly known as Crello is a renowned alternative to Canva. With thousands of templates, many of which are free, you can create eye-catchy overlays for your live streams. Crello also has free and paid plans, so you can opt-in for whichever suits you best.
Adobe Express
Adobe needs no introduction for graphics. With Adobe Express, you can design professional-looking templates and assets. It’s the best option if you want professional-looking overlays without learning Photoshop.
Using AI to Generate Overlays
Using AI is one of the best approaches for people who want perfection without learning complex design software.
Midjourney / Adobe Firefly / DALL-E
Using these powerful AI image generators, you can create custom background, patterns or frames with a single prompt. Then import the AI generated image into Canva or Adobe Express to remove the center area and create a frame. Then, you can export your graphic in your preferred format and import it into OneStream Live Studio.
Adding Overlays to Top Platforms and Streaming Software
How to Add a Stream Overlay in OBS
Overlays can give your OBS stream a clean and branded layout. The good thing is that OBS provides you full customization freedom. This means you can do everything, add static graphics or animated visuals, or even an OBS BRB screen.
Note: OBS renders graphics on your PC, which can slow down the process because it’s processor-intensive. Using OneStream Live Studio saves you from this because it’s cloud-based and puts no load on your system.
Here’s how to add an overlay to OBS:
- Open OBS and go to the Scenes panel.
- Click + Add → Image or Media Source depending on your overlay type.
- Select your file and hit OK.
- Resize and position your overlay inside the preview window.
Now you may be wondering how to import overlays into OBS. Well, the process is the same. Just grab the file, like PNG, JPG, GIF, or WEBM, and hit import.
Want motion graphics? Here’s how to add an animated overlay to OBS:
- Add it as a Media Source, and make sure you check the “Loop” option to keep it running throughout the stream. Ensure the file format is “WebM” because GIF might compromise the quality and MP4 will have no transparency.
You can also add the OBS streaming templates and packs to save time.
How to Add Overlays to Twitch
If you’re striving to grow on Twitch, then overlays can definitely help you engage viewers and attract more followers. While Twitch doesn’t have an option to add overlays directly, you can add overlays easily with OneStream Live Studio. However, Twitch Extensions is another option for overlays that most streamers use. It’s commonly used to display Polls, leaderboards or mini-games to keep the viewers interactive and engaged.
Wrapping Up
You can spend hours wrestling with OBS plugins, or you can open OneStream Studio and have a branded stream in 5 minutes. Use OneStream Studio to take control in your own hands and brand in your streams in countless ways. Whether you’re a gamer, a brand or an event organizer, OneStream Live makes things easier for everyone.
Time to test your creativity. Use OneStream Studio visuals for the best streaming experience.
FAQs
You can add an overlay in your live stream by uploading the overlay image or video to your streaming software (like OBS or OneStream Live) and positioning it on top of your stream.
Streamers typically use custom graphics or pre-designed templates, which can include logos, animations, alerts, or social media handles.
To enable a stream overlay, add it as a layer in your streaming software and ensure it’s turned on in your scene setup.
You can import a stream overlay by selecting the “Add Media” or “Import” option in your streaming software, then choosing the overlay file (e.g., PNG, GIF) you want to use.
OneStream Live is a cloud-based live streaming solution to create, schedule, and multistream professional-looking live streams across 45+ social media platforms and the web simultaneously. For content-related queries and feedback, write to us at [email protected]. You’re also welcome to Write for Us!
