Instagram looks good, it has to be said. The photo-first social network has a style unlike any other. Styles move on though and fashion is never a static idea, which is why yesterday, Instagram revealed details about a refresh that will tweak the app’s visuals and update it to a more energetic and vibrant state of being. Let’s dig into this a little more.
In the blog post announcing the refresh, Instagram said, “Our new system is designed to embrace continued evolution to help us create more immersive and inclusive experiences for our community.” It will do this by reimagining the Instagram gradient (the color palette that sits behind the Instagram logo), which you can see below, introducing new and exclusive Instagram fonts, and implementing a new layout that promises to put content first and celebrate creativity, simplicity, and self-expression.
This all follows on nicely from Instagram Head, Adam Mosseri’s announcement a couple of weeks ago that Instagram will soon start to offer users a more immersive experience by altering the feed to show full-screen images and videos.
Instagram’s new fonts, which the social network is quirkily calling Instagram Sans have been inspired by the company’s logo and wordmark. As well as showing up across all branding materials from websites to billboards, users will also get a chance to put them to work in their Stories and Reels. What is nice about these new typefaces is that Instagram has worked with language experts to ensure that as well as fitting in with the broader Instagram design philosophy they are also inclusive to different languages around the world including languages like Arabic, Thai, and Japanese, which have diverse alphabets and scripts.
We love to see tech giants acting responsibly and building accessibility into strategic decisions. Overall, this move from Instagram falls short of a full rebrand but definitely presents an updated vision of the company to the world and is designed to bring new energy and purpose to the app. We’ll have to wait and see how it takes hold in users’ posts over the coming weeks and months to see the effect it will have. In other recent Instagram news, Instagram is moving into the NFT space and will allow artists and collectors to display their work on their Instagram profiles.
Image via: Instagram
