Whether you’re a small business, a big brand, or an aspiring influencer, a stunning Instagram profile can help you put your name out there as well as establish your branding.
Have you ever seen an Instagram feed where everything just looks so well-thought out, where each photo is perfectly matching with the others? Where you can just feel that certain aesthetic dripping out when you scroll through their profile?
You can achieve that as well! Read through our guide below on how to create that artistically cohesive Instagram aesthetic for your profile – which can help you grow your account and build your branding to go beyond your logo design.
6 Tips on Building A Cohesive Instagram Aesthetic
Here’s a step-by-step guide on finding and building that cohesive Instagram feed:
- Establish your brand identity
- Select a visual style, theme, or aesthetic
- Have a moodboard
- Play around with your layout
- Use consistent editing style
- Plan your posts beforehand
Establish your brand identity
Before you even begin taking aesthetic shots for your IG, you need to do the most crucial step first. And that is knowing and establishing your brand identity.
Brand identity is the personality or image that you want your brand to be perceived as. Some brands like Glossier want to be known as effortless, casual, and laid-back. LEGO aims to be seen as imaginative and creative. While Louis Vuitton’s branding is luxurious and elegant.
Knowing your own brand identity is key to building a successful brand and finding the right aesthetic. This is because your brand identity is your starting point – it gives you a clear direction for your visuals, brand voice, marketing campaigns, and so on. It also gives your audience a point to remember and associate you with.
Can you imagine if Louis Vuitton suddenly starts posting a meme on their Instagram page? It won’t match with their identity, right?
The same goes with you, whether you’re curating your Instagram for your personal brand or for a big business. Establish an identity first. This should help guide you if your Instagram feed should look chic and sophisticated, fun and creative, grunge and feisty, friendly and approachable, etc.
Select a visual style, theme, or aesthetic
Now that you know your brand identity, it’s time to select the visual style for your feed that will match it.
Some styles you can use are:
- Minimalist
- Vintage
- Bright and Colorful
- Cute and Girly
- Rugged and Grunge
- Dark
- Pastel
- Illustration
- Black and White
- Flatlay
Again, the aesthetic should be something that complements your brand identity. And don’t feel limited by our list above! Feel free to be creative and explore other styles such as retro, anime, sci-fi, old Hollywood, and so on.
Need some inspiration? If you’re aiming for the dreamy vintage aesthetic, check out Cheap Monday’s account:
Check out Headspace IG page and their poppy colorful feed:
You can also choose to have a one-color palette, such as using mainly reds or blues in all your photos. You can see it in Prada Beauty, where they stuck to a green color scheme in their feed:
If you’re planning to have colors as your main focal point, make sure to brush up on the basics of color wheel and color theory first. This helps ensure that your color palette is one that is harmonious and appealing to the eyes.
You can also use a specific photography style, such as mainly using faceless shots, using fisheye mode, or always taking it at 0.5x. You can also go for blurred shots, action shots, or nature shots.
You can also take cues from popular recent style trends and try to adapt the look for your feed. This can be Y2K, vaporwave, eclectic boho, dark academia, coquette, coastal, or maximalist.
Have a moodboard
Having a hard time selecting the right visual style for you? A moodboard might help.
Try to do this short exercise. Think of your brand identity and come up with words to describe it. For example, Coca-Cola might come up with “fun”, “joy” “family” and “friends”. From these words, find photos, illustrations, typography, colors, or patterns that you think embody those words.
If we go by the Coca-Cola example, they can probably use photos of friends laughing together, people jumping into a pool, fireworks, sunny skies, and bright neon lights. For colors, the most ideal ones will be cherry red, sky blue, bright yellow, or warm pink.
Do you see the vision? You can do the same for your brand. Use your moodboard to find that specific theme or look that suits you.
Moodboards are also useful if you already have a specific aesthetic in mind. You can then scour the web, browse through magazines or newspapers, or just sketch some ideas you may have that can fit your aesthetic. This not only gives you inspiration but also a reference or some sort of brand style guide to look back on when creating your Instagram content.
Play around with your layout
Playing with your layout is another way to make your feed even more creative and visually appealing.
Some ideas are:
- Horizontal Lines: Each row follows a specific theme, style, or color
- Vertical Lines: Each column follows a specific theme, style, or color
- Diagonal: Each diagonal line will follow a specific theme
- Checkerboard: Alternating rows or columns will follow a specific theme
- Puzzle: The photos will form a picture when seen in whole
- Borders: Adding a black or a white border on every photo. You can also use a specific color as well.
Snif.co has done the puzzle style in their feed. Check it out below:
Planning to do the horizontal style layout? Check out how Chanel did it below:
Use a consistent editing style
Consistency is one of the most important factors in building that recognizable aesthetic.
Do you use a specific filter in your photos? Then use that same filter on all of them. Do you use text in your photos? Then use the same font and typography style on all your texts. Perhaps you prefer a certain angle on your photos. Then we suggest using that same composition on all your photos as well.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you need to stick to your editing style forever. You need to regularly review if your posts are getting engagement and then adjust your Instagram accordingly.
But the key thing is to be consistent. Try to stick to your aesthetic for a minimum of at least 9-12 posts. This should give you an idea if your style works or not. It also gives your audience enough time to get familiarized with your aesthetic.
Plan your posts beforehand
How do you actually ensure that your posts will remain cohesive with each other? The answer – planning.
Sticking to your aesthetic is going to be difficult if you don’t have an idea of what you’re posting. That’s why it’s best to have a content calendar first. This should give you an idea of what kind of content you need to post, and figure out how to apply your aesthetic to those.
Creative layouts like puzzles or diagonals also need to be pre-planned ahead. You can use apps like Planoly or Later so that you can see beforehand how your planned posts will look when posted on Instagram and see if you need any adjustments on your layout.
Build Your Instagram Brand Today!
Social media is crucial in getting more audiences to know your brand or business. But with millions of accounts, how can you stand out?
One way is to have a stunning Instagram profile. Visually appealing and creative profiles tend to draw a lot of attention due to the high level of artistry that bleeds out from each photo. Having a certain aesthetic or theme can also help reinforce your brand identity as well as make your brand more recognizable and familiar to your audience’s eyes.
We hope you learned a lot about building a beautiful Instagram feed today. Check out our other Instagram related articles such as Best 43 Instagram Handle Ideas for 2023. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop a comment below.
Need help in designing your Instagram posts? You can check out our AI design tools or check out our customizable templates for Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels.
Till next time!
Written by DesignCrowd on Monday, July 29, 2024
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.