What is Lower Third?
A lower third is a graphic overlay in the bottom portion of the frame that names the person speaking or labels what is on screen, usually appearing for a few seconds.
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The name comes from broadcast television, where the title sat in the lower third of the screen. In practice it is a name and role, a location tag, or a short label clarifying a claim. It animates in, holds long enough to be read, and animates out rather than sitting on screen for the whole shot.
For interview and podcast video, lower thirds are what stop a viewer joining mid-clip from wondering who is talking. They also matter for repurposed clips: a 60-second extract pulled from a long interview carries no introduction, so the name card is often the only context a new viewer gets.
Keep the text inside the title-safe area so it is not clipped on a TV or cropped when the clip is reframed vertically. A reliable pattern is a name at around 40 to 60 pixels tall on a 1080p frame, a smaller role line beneath it, and a four to six second hold, which is long enough to read twice.
Where Lower Third shows up
You will meet Lower Third most often while comparing thumbnail & graphics tools - Canva, Snappa, Adobe Express, and Visme all deal with it, though not in the same way or at the same price.
Related terms: Thumbnail A/B Test.