Sometimes it’s great to take a break from endlessly scrolling through your feed — and visit someone’s individual Instagram page instead. Welcome to Instagram Grid.
Lined up neat rows of three, every Instagram post suddenly is part of a much bigger picture. A peek into an Instagram user’s soul or at least their content strategy.
And Instagram power users know just the way to work this viewpoint to take advantage, with artfully planned posts that, together, create a stunning Instagram grid layout.
In case you haven’t thought about what your rows of squares add up to, it’s all about time. Here’s all you need to know about building an attention-grabbing Instagram grid to gain more followers and engagement.
Why your Instagram grid layout matters
When someone follows you for the first time or visits your feed to check out your content, your grid is a great opportunity to express your vibe or brand.
The grid offers you a birds-eye view of a user’s publishing history. This is your first impression of their body of work: an introduction at a glance to their personal or professional brand.
For individual users, making an attractive grid may not matter — sure, color coding your posts could be a fun personal challenge, however, if you’re just on the ‘gram to keep in touch with friends, not amass an audience, branding likely isn’t too important.
However, for brands, creatives, or influencers, consistency and style are important… particularly if your account is concentrated on aesthetics or lifestyle.
After all, your grid is a quick and simple method to show your message. Plus, anyone who views your profile is considering following you. This is your opportunity to show exactly what you want to offer.
Are you avant-garde, or on-trend? Will your content soothe, or bring the drama? Is your brand consistent, or chaotic? One look at a grid and they’ll get the (sorry not sorry) image.
7 creative methods to design an Instagram grid layout
Nice grids start with a vision, so we’ve scoured the depths of Instagram to dig up a few of the slickest styles to inspire your own look.
Commit to a color combo
That is probably the most common grid-style but it really doesn’t get much easier.
Choose a color palette (pinks and greys?) or a certain tone (high contrast neons?) to feature in each photo. Viewed together, your gallery will look like a matching set, even when the content of your pics vary. Home and lifestyle influencer
@the.orange.home exclusively feature images with bright, white backgrounds with earth-tone accents. It’s a vibe.
In case your home or office isn’t decorated like an Insta-ready backdrop, one easy way to make sure your photos all speak the same visual language is simply to make use of the same filter for every photo to help create the same tone.
A variation on this theme? Using a normal filter or color palette, but also working in an “accent” color or filter every few posts, too. Your feed may be mostly dreamy, sepia-toned boho fantasy, but every few rows, we see a vibrant pop of forest green. Woo! You’re playing with fire!
Create a checkerboard effect
By alternating the style of photo you publish, you’ll simply create a checkerboard look on your grid. Try including text quotes with photography, or mixing close-up shots with landscape photos. Going back and forth with two distinct colors can be effective, too.
Some cute inspiration for you: here, parenting resource @solidstarts alternates between images of snacking babies and how-to graphics.
Hot tip: if you’re making posts with texts, keep the background color or fonts consistent to actually make the pattern clear.
Design row by row
Think outside the box… and inside the row. Uniting the pictures on each row by theme or color can create an amazing effect.
PR firm @ninepointagency, for instance, goes with a different background color for each palette on their grid.
The trick for this one, of course, is that you need to post three images at a time, or the alignment will be off.
If you’re bold enough to experiment with panoramic images for one of your rows — a trio of photos that add up to one long, horizontal image, you daredevil, you, — many users post the same caption for each one to make it clear there’re three parts of a whole, like photographer @gregorygiepel did with his architectural shots.
