Sunday, May 12, 2019

How to Craft a Consistent Instagram Feed for Brandability

How to Craft a Consistent Instagram Feed for Brandability
Read Original Article here
By: Alice Kotlyarenko  April 11, 2019 5 minutes

Pick three Instagram accounts you love and scroll through their feeds. What do they all have in common? The chances are, each of them employs an Instagram theme.

An Instagram theme is a visual style you recognize right away, just like you recognize Picasso’s art, Charlie Chaplin’s moustache, or certain architectural styles of buildings.

There are quite a few things that go into crafting a consistent Instagram feed. In this article, we’ll walk you through creating a recognizable theme for your own Instagram feed.

Step 1: Decide What Your Instagram Is About

Is your Instagram the diary of a beach bum, or does it showcase your favorite fashion looks? Perhaps you’re into minimal architecture, or maybe you post portraits of people you see in the city.

An Instagram theme starts with the subject. Just like a media outlet, you need to figure out what your Instagram is about. It’s fun to just post whatever catches your eye, but you’ll have a hard time creating a consistent, recognizable feed if your photos are all over the place.

Step 2: Choose Colors, Filters, and Borders
Now that you know what you’re going to post, you need to decide what it’s going to look like. While subjects help make your feed more focused, it’s the visual qualities that tie your photos together.

Your second step to a uniform Instagram theme is sticking to similar colors. The easiest trick is just using the same filter on all photos, so that it tweaks the colors and light in the same way (here’s a more detailed explanation of how Instagram filters work).

If you notice you can’t make all of your photos look good with just one or two filters, it might be because your subjects and lighting are too different.

Much like using filters, adding frames to your photos is a quick and dirty trick. White borders instantly make your posts more recognizable, and by following a rule—say, only square photos with a thin white frame, or portrait and landscape photos posted in turn—you add a geometric pattern to your feed.

If you like more control over your photos and are willing to invest more time in editing, try and develop your own color palette. Start by generating a color scheme from a photo you like, and play with editing to see what controls produce the look you want. Many photo editors allow you to create your own presets, which you can then apply to new photos like filters.


Step 3: Balance Out Colors and Subjects
To be clear, being consistent doesn’t equal being repetitive. You don’t have to post photos that all have the exact same shade of blue, or limit yourself to landscapes only. On the contrary; combining several types of shots will make your Instagram feed more interesting.


Read Original Article here
By: Alice Kotlyarenko  April 11, 2019 5 minutes

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