Layout

What is it?

Layout is how multiple participants and content are arranged on screen when more than one thing needs to be visible. The standard family:

• Solo — one person full-screen
• Side-by-side — two people, equal halves (the interview look)
• Grid — 3–9 equal tiles (the panel/Brady Bunch look)
• Spotlight — the active speaker big, everyone else in a small strip
• Content + faces — a presentation big, participants in a row beside it

Practical example

In StreamYard, a host runs a four-guest panel. As each guest gives their opening take, the host taps Spotlight on them — that guest fills the screen while others shrink to thumbnails. For the open discussion, one tap back to Grid puts everyone equal. The audience always knows who to look at, purely through layout — that's directing without a director.

Key things to know (non-technical)

• Layout choice communicates status and attention: equal tiles = conversation among peers; spotlight = "this person has the floor."
• Auto-layouts (the system rearranging as guests join/leave) handle the mechanics; manual spotlight is the host's directing tool.
• Vertical (9:16) layouts are their own design problem — stacking instead of side-by-side — and most desktop-era tools do them badly.
• Branded layouts (frames, name plates baked into the arrangement) are where layout meets the brand kit.

In Tupic Live

Mobile-first vertical layouts are a genuine differentiation opportunity for Tupic Live: stacked guests, vertical spotlight, and clean 9:16 panel views — designed for how social audiences actually hold their phones, not cropped from desktop assumptions.