The reels safe zone: where your text won't get covered

You can make a perfect video and still lose people because your best line sits under the like button. Here's how to keep text, captions and faces visible on every phone.

The canvas

Make vertical video at 1080 × 1920 pixels (9:16). That's the full-screen size for Reels, TikTok and Shorts. (YouTube counts square or taller videos as Shorts.)

What covers your video

• Bottom ~20%: your name, caption, music label and progress bar.
• Right edge: like, comment, share and audio buttons.
• Top ~10%: the status bar and, on some screens, the app header.

These are approximate and vary by phone, app version and platform — design with a margin rather than to the pixel.

The rule we use

Keep all important text and faces inside the centre band: roughly from 12% to 75% of the height, and away from the right 15% of the width. In pixels on a 1080 × 1920 canvas, that's about y = 230 to 1440 and x = 60 to 920.

Captions that stay readable

• Two lines at most, 4–7 words per chunk.
• Big and bold, with an outline or a soft box behind it.
• Place them in the lower part of the centre band — not at the very bottom where the app's own caption sits.
• Check the export on your phone before posting: open it full screen and see if anything hides under a button.

Faces

Keep the speaker's eyes around the upper third of the frame. If you film horizontally, crop to vertical so the face stays centred — side-cropped faces lose people fast.