Why CTV Artwork Is Different From Mobile Artwork

One of the most common shortcuts in connected TV product development is reusing mobile artwork on the TV platform. It is understandable — creating separate artwork for every platform is time-consuming, and the same image technically displays on both surfaces. But the results are usually poor, and the reasons are worth understanding.

The Viewing Distance Problem

A mobile phone is typically held 12–18 inches from the viewer's face. A living-room television is typically viewed from 8–12 feet away. At that distance, the effective pixel density of the image — the number of pixels per degree of visual angle — is much lower than on a phone screen.

This means that fine detail that is clearly visible on a phone is invisible or illegible on a television. Small text in artwork overlays, subtle gradients, thin borders, and small logos all suffer at television viewing distances. Artwork designed for mobile often looks muddy, cluttered, or illegible when displayed on a television.

The solution is not to use higher-resolution images — it is to design the artwork differently. CTV artwork should use larger text, simpler compositions, higher contrast, and larger logos than mobile artwork for the same content.

Aspect Ratio and Safe Zones

Mobile content artwork is typically portrait or square. Connected TV content artwork is typically landscape (16:9 or similar). These are fundamentally different compositions. A portrait image cropped to landscape loses the subject of the image. A square image letterboxed into a landscape frame looks wrong.

Safe zones — the margins around the edge of the screen that may be cut off on older televisions due to overscan — add another constraint. Important content (logos, text, key visual elements) should be kept within the safe zone, which is typically 5–10% inset from each edge. Mobile artwork often places important elements near the edges of the frame, which can cause them to be cut off on television.

Platform-specific artwork requirements add further complexity. Android TV requires a 1280 × 720 TV banner. Roku has its own artwork specifications. Apple TV has its own. Each platform has different requirements for the home screen launcher, the content shelf, and the detail page. Managing these requirements across platforms requires a systematic approach to artwork production.

Text in Artwork

Text embedded in artwork images is a particular problem on connected TV. On mobile, small text in an image is readable because the screen is close to the viewer. On television, the same text may be completely illegible.

The general guidance for CTV artwork is to minimize text in images and rely on the UI layer for text display. If text must appear in artwork — team names, event titles, scores — it should be large, high-contrast, and positioned within the safe zone.

A practical test: display the artwork on an actual television and stand at normal viewing distance. If you cannot read the text comfortably, it is too small. This test is more reliable than any specification, because it reflects the actual viewer experience.

What This Means in Practice

For a sports streaming product, the practical implication is that artwork production needs to account for both mobile and CTV from the beginning. Retrofitting CTV artwork onto a product that was designed for mobile is more expensive and produces worse results than designing for both surfaces from the start.

At minimum, a sports streaming product needs separate artwork for: the mobile content shelf (portrait or square), the CTV content shelf (landscape), the CTV home screen launcher (platform-specific), and the detail page hero (landscape, high resolution). These are not optional — they are the baseline for a product that looks professional on both surfaces.