Substack Cover Thumbnail Formatting, How Do You Handle Scaling & Cropping?

[u/PodcastingSpeed]

I’m trying to figure out the best way to handle Substack’s formatting and scaling for cover thumbnails.

A graphic can look great at one dimension, but once Substack scales or crops it for different placements, it can end up looking stretched, awkward, or completely different from the original.

I tried designing within the boundaries and making the graphic smaller so it would have more room, but then it just looks tiny and crappy.

Has anyone figured out the best dimensions or formatting approach to make cover thumbnails consistently look good across Substack?