How To Make An Instagram Post Template For Your Brand

What, even, is a template? That’s the first question to pop-up in most people’s head.

Consider Instagram post templates a preset or a format. In design terms specifically, a template is the format on which you layout your content for it to look a certain way.

Instagram post templates give you enough creative liberty to experiment with formats that present your brand’s aesthetics best. You can play with color, fonts, video, etc. to line up all your posts with uniformity!

“I love the aesthetic of this account!”

We’ve often whispered that to ourselves or thought when we look at certain accounts. What we mean by that is we’re drawn to the post templates used to stylize the contents of the account.

Here’s a look at advertising powerhouse Ogilvy’s (@ogilvy) Instagram account…

The font. The color. The strategic placement of their work after a certain number of posts. Ogilvy’s Instagram post template designs reflect some major brand aesthetics and content like:

• Color palette
• Projects
• Vision
• Advice

With a very simple post template design that is dominantly unified by color and font, Ogilvy has managed to maintain a cohesive account that’s legible, as well as easy on the eyes!

So when we speak of aesthetics to consider when designing an Instagram post template for your own brand, you might want to consider the following:

• Brand colors
• Brand text font
• Photography aesthetics
• Video aesthetics

“Does all of this really matter?”

Yeah, it does. Instagram post templates aren’t a just-for-fun thing. Designing is a complex and difficult task, and you’re competing with over 25 million businesses on the app to stay relevant!

With over 95 million photos and videos being shared to Instagram every day, it really does come down to post templates to make people think your content appears different in the metaverse!

“Okay, but I’m no design expert!”

And you think everyone else with a business or otherwise on the app is? Instagram post templates can be broken down into very basic design principles for you to get started.

All you got to know is your brand.

Let’s get started.

1. Post Type

Instagram has quite a few options on what type of content you want to share- Stories, Feed Posts, Reels and so. You can have post templates for all these formats, but let’s focus on the Feed first!

The posts showing up on your traditional Instagram feed are long-lasting in that art gallery-esque grid- That is also the common landing page for new followers- unless you blew up through a viral Reels video.

Your Instagram feed appears in small squares, but the post options come in 2 aspect ratios:

• 1:1
• 4:5

“I hate the crop around some of my photos because of this.”

Yeah, we do too. That’s why a Feed post template should be designed around these ratios!

2. Visual Content

Pastry Chef Matt Adlard (@mattadlard) has an Instagram that had us drooling! (and it’s not just the templates!)

As a baking influencer, Adlard’s feed deeply focuses on one thing – his creations!

The visual content he’s picked to parade on his feed are quality clean shots of his baking goodies – and hardly anything else.

He also very smartly applies the same thumbnails to his Videos showing up on the Feed, making his Instagram post template entirely about a visual of his food!

And that’s what we mean by picking your visual content. For beginners, pick content about your brand that can be replicated within the same design- but perhaps with a different product!

One brand following this easy-to-do post-template strategy is Unbirthday (@unbirthday.co); a baking goods Instagram account that posts its content within a similar background, but with a different product each time!

“Okay, but all I do is post written content.”

And for that too, Instagram post templates can work with stock images and text overlays.

If you’ve got something interesting to communicate through text onto your Feed, head over to some of these stock photo websites and type onto them to build your aesthetic!

• Unsplash
• Shutterstock
• Megapixl

3. Design Components

Instagram post templates are where you get to exercise your creative liberties! The app itself is built with design and edit features like filters, text, and so on- but if you’re starting from scratch you can create an operative Instagram post template by:

Add the same filter onto all your Feed content. Did you know that 60% of the top brands on Instagram use the same filter for every post! No wonder their feeds look consistent!

• Put your brand’s watermark on the posts.
• Using the same font for all text-based content.
• Following a set aspect ratio (either use 1:1 or 4:5)
• Add a specific color outline to your posts

By following one or a few of these design elements, you’ll achieve a visible unity in your feed and will have an easy Instagram post template to follow!

If you’re looking for a fuss-free way of creating an Instagram post template using some simple design elements, then our smartphones are equipped with the basics to help you get started!

With in-camera editing, there are plenty of tools you can play around with to create a post template, and those include:

• Aspect Ratios
• Color Filters
• Light Adjustments
• Stickers
• Text

Go ahead with these if you have a grip around taking your brand’s photos and create a template of the edits so you can plaster the same on for each post you’re about to make!

These in-camera editing features can be limiting, however. You may not be getting enough creative control around designing your post templates.

Here, we’re rounding up the beginner-friendly apps that step the game for Instagram users to achieve their desired post template design.

1. Snapseed

Snapseed by Google is a professional photo editing app that allows you to play with a plethora of design components.

Snapseed makes the cut to design Instagram post templates because of its editing options that can be tweaked to fit many brand and user aesthetics!

It also allows you to add text with decent font variety, fixes imperfections, removes unwanted elements in photos (to a certain extent), and above all, maintain photo quality throughout the editing process.

With a 4.4 rating on Google Play, the app is Ad-free and Free for downloads, making it a popular and convenient choice to get your Instagram post template design journey started!

2. Canva

A graphic design platform that makes Instagram post templates a piece of cake for you, Canva is a powerhouse tool for Instagram users to indulge in a wonderful designing experience!

Canva has a dedicated Instagram Story-making feature, but it goes beyond that. Being a free-to-use platform along with paid subscriptions, Canva is a tried, tested, and truly a beloved platform for creating.

Users can select from ready-to-use templates, as well as get started on blank canvases to splash out the perfect post template design to explore and achieve their aesthetic goals.

With over 60 million monthly active users, Canva harbors stock photos and text fonts, and other design elements to make creating Instagram post templates, a dream!

3. Pablo by Buffer

Text enthusiasts, unite! If you’re looking to create post templates around text, then Pablo is your go-to.

Text over photos- and that’s it! Pablo gives you the liberty to select your own photos or through the stock photos from Unsplash, making typography templates the easiest thing to create.

With a minimalistic interface and no complexity in tools, Pablo also allows you to pick through templates, add filters and fix dimensional aspects of the content you’re about to construct.

Free to use, and simple to understand, Pablo is a convenient answer to designing Instagram post templates, making your life a whole lot easier!

Having fun, yet?

Apart from learning how to create Instagram post templates, you also have to make your journey into designing them fun! The more you enjoy creating a template, the better ideas you’ll get into expanding your creative genius.

With a roundup of these beginner-friendly apps and a very basic understanding of design and aesthetics, you can count on yourself to create post templates that communicate your brand best and make Instafeed stand out. And this right here is just traditional feed posts. Wait till you get to design other post templates, like Stories!