How to design instagram highlights
How to Create Beautiful Instagram Highlight Covers (40 Free Icons)
Instagram Highlight covers make a great first impression.
Located right below the bio section of your Instagram profile, they provide a polished look for your Instagram Highlights and draw attention to your best Instagram Story content.
And you don’t have to be a hip influencer to use them. Orgs of all stripes from government institutions to Fortune 500 companies use them to great effect.
Covers are an easy win for any brand that banks on aesthetics. (And on Instagram, that’s everyone.)
The good news is that even if you don’t have access to a graphic design team, they’re easy to make.
We’ll walk you through all the steps to create your own Instagram highlight covers. As a bonus, we have a free pack of icons to help you get started.
How to create an Instagram highlight
How to create a new Instagram highlight from your profile
How to create your own Instagram Highlight covers
5 tips for using Instagram highlight covers and icons
Download your free pack of 40 customizable Instagram Stories Highlights Icons now. Optimize your profile and set your brand apart from the competition.
Create highlights to keep your best Story content at the top of your Instagram profile permanently.
1. In your Story, tap Highlight in the bottom right corner.
2. Choose the Highlight you want to add your Story to.
3. Or, tap New to create a new Highlight, and type out a name for it. Then click Add.
And that’s it! You just created an Instagram highlight.
Have an idea for a new highlight? Or maybe you want to add a few different Stories at once?
Follow these steps to create a new Highlight from your Instagram profile:
1. Go to your profile and tap the +New button (the big plus sign).
2. Pick the Stories you want to add to your new Highlight. Pro tip: Instagram gives you an archive of your stories going back years. So don’t be afraid to do a little digging for those Story gems.
3. Tap Next and name your new Highlight.
4. Choose your Highlight cover, and tap Done.
Don’t have a highlight cover yet? Read on.
Instagram will allow you to use any image you like for your highlight covers.
BUT your brand deserves better than just “any image.”
This space is prime real estate for converting lurkers to followers. You want to leave an impression.
If you’re crunched for time, Adobe Spark has pre-made covers that you can customize and use.
But if you want more control over your Instagram brand, these steps will show you how to easily build a great Instagram highlight cover from scratch (or almost-scratch).
Step 1: Log in to Visme
Log into your account on Visme or create a free account on visme.co.
Step 2: Create a new image that is sized for Stories.
From the main Visme dashboard, click Custom Size in the top right corner, then type in the Instagram Story image dimensions (1080 x 1920 pixels). Click Create!
Step 3: Get our free icon set
Download your free pack of 40 customizable Instagram Stories Highlights Icons now.
Optimize your profile and set your brand apart from the competition.
Once you’re done downloading, unzip the file and choose your favorites. (You can use them with or without our professionally designed backgrounds.)
Step 4: Upload your icons to Visme
Go to My files in the left-hand menu, click Upload, and select the icons you would like to add.
Once you upload the icon image, click on it. If you can’t see your icon on your canvas after you’ve uploaded it, don’t worry. It’s most likely because the icon is white lines on a transparent background. We’ll fix this in the next step.
Step 5: Create your background
Right-click anywhere on your image and click Background. A quick-access background bad will appear in the top left corner of your workspace. Here, you can select a background color, or add a brand color in the HEX code field.
When you change the background color (to anything other than white, your icon will appear).
Step 6: Download your highlight covers from Visme
Name your project. Then click Download in the top right corner. Choose your file type (PNG or JPG are both fine). Then click the Download button.
Download your free pack of 40 customizable Instagram Stories Highlights Icons now. Optimize your profile and set your brand apart from the competition.
Get the free icons right now!
Your cover will be downloaded to your hard drive.
Repeat this process with other cover designs.
Pro tip: Now is a great time to make sure your Instagram account has your Story archive enabled. This is important if you want to go back and see your old Stories without downloading them to your phone.
Step 7: Edit your existing highlights to add your new covers
You no longer have to add an image to your Story (where all your followers will have to swipe past it) in order to make it a highlight cover.
Instead, you can just edit the highlight directly:
- Go to your Instagram profile.
- Tap the highlight whose cover you’d like to change.
- Tap More in the bottom right corner.
- Tap Edit Highlight.
- Tap Edit Cover.
- Choose the image icon to access your phone’s photo library.
- Choose your beautiful cover.
- Tap Done (actually, tap it three times.)
Do this for each of the stories you want to add covers to.
Voila! Your on-brand Instagram highlight covers are now gracing your profile and unifying your look. Magnifique.
5 tips for using Instagram highlight covers and icons
Now that you know how easy it is to make your own unique highlight covers, we’ve got some time-saving tips to make them as effective as possible.
Show off your brand’s aesthetic
Your brand has its favourite colours, font, capitalization—and possibly even some favorite emojis. Your highlight covers are definitely the place to show these off.
That said, keep in mind that less is more. Those little portholes are pretty small, after all. Clarity is key.
Don’t be afraid to experiment
Your Instagram highlights don’t have to do it all. They can do one thing very well.
For instance, Red Bull’s highlights used to be fairly conventional (e.g., Events, Projects, Video, etc.) But now they give each of their athletes their own highlight. All we get is a face, a name, and an emoji. Intriguing.
Meanwhile, the New York Times takes Stories literally. They populate their highlights with exhaustive yet readable primers on complicated political subjects. They also create fun, snackable Stories about appealing subjects.
Either way, their cover style is perfectly consistent, which helps make the wide reach of their topics more manageable.
Be consistent in your organization
There are absolutely no rules when it comes to organizing your Instagram highlights. (Brb, my inner librarian needs to go rail antacids.
)
But, some brands organize their highlights like they would their website (e.g., About, Team, FAQ). Some brands organize by collection or product (e.g., Winter ‘20, New Arrivals, Makeup Line).
I’m here to tell you that however you choose to organize, remember to approach it from your audience’s perspective.
In other words: if they know what they’re going to see, they’re more likely to tap.
Highlight the Stories that matters most
Ask yourself what’s most important to your audience. What are they here to see? This season’s collection? Today’s schedule? Or something that is useful for the longer-term, like, for instance, how to pair your flagship earbuds?
The Met, for instance, prioritizes potential visitors. It keeps a helpful guide to this week’s exhibitions at the top of its highlight reel.
Convert your audience to customers
With the right covers, you can introduce new eyes to your best shoppable Stories and swipe-up content (if you have an Instagram for business profile with more than 10,000 followers).
Try using our shopping bag icon, for instance.
For more tips on selling products using your Instagram Stories, check out our complete guide to Instagram shopping.
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How To Make Custom Instagram Highlights Covers
If you’re eager to get going with Instagram Highlights, as well as to start rocking tasteful iconography like this, then good news — we at Plann are here to help!
Who says your Instagram stories can’t live on your profile forever? Thanks to Instagram highlights, they can be eternalized on your feed for your audience to enjoy over and over again.
Not only can Instagram highlights extend the ‘life’ of your stories content and get more eyeballs on your work, but they’re also a great way to show what your account is all about. Many brands and influencers used Instagram highlight covers (the graphics that sit along your highlights bar) to showcase the different themes their account covers For example: a mommy blogger might have ‘motherhood,’ ‘home’ and ‘style’ as some of her highlight cover icons,
You can also customize your Instagram highlight covers with colors, patterns and graphic to add to the overall aesthetic of your account. In this article, we’re going to walk you through step by step how to create custom Instagram highlights covers for your feed — plus, some examples of beautiful Instagram highlight covers to inspire your creations.
Your step-by-step guide to creating custom Instagram highlight covers
If you’re a visual learner, you can check out the video above! Otherwise, keep reading for our step-by-step guide.
First, let’s walk through how you can start to create a new Instagram highlight.
Step 1:Tap the button in the bottom-right to go to your profile.
Step 2:
Tap the “+” button to make a new Instagram Story Highlight.
You’ll be taken to your Instagram Archive, where you can see all of your past stories.
Step 3:
Choose which Stories you want in this Highlight by tapping the circle in the bottom-right corner.
Step 4:
Tap “Next.”
Step 5:
Choose a name for your Highlight.
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Step 6:Normally here you would pick out your custom Instagram Highlights cover.
Skip over that for now and just tap “Add.”
Congratulations! You’ve made your first Instagram Highlights.
How to make custom Instagram highlights coversIn order to make custom Instagram Highlights covers, you’ll need access to any free graphic design platform. We personally like Canva, which you can actually access from within your Plann account!
Step 1:Open your Canva account and type “Instagram Story” into the search bar and scroll to the bottom.
Step 2:Click on the template for “Instagram Story” when it appears. Now you’ll have the perfect sizing for your Instagram Story highlight cover.
Step 3:Choose “ELEMENTS” from the sidebar and then click “GRAPHICS”. Now you’ll be able to search through different illustrations to choose icons for your Instagram Story highlight covers. There are plenty of options including free icons and paid icons.
Alternatively, you could create text-based highlight covers using Canva’s text options.
Step 4:
After you choose the icon you want as your custom Instagram Highlights cover, just choose a background color, and click “Download.” Make sure the icon isn’t so large that parts of it will be lost during Instagram’s circular cropping.
Step 5:Send it to your phone, go back to Instagram, and post it as a new Story. To do that, just go to your home feed and swipe left. When you’ve chosen the photo you want to use as your icon, be sure to pinch the screen to zoom out as much as you can. This will ensure that parts of your icon aren’t cropped off when you use it as your cover.
Step 6:
You’ll need to add this image to the Highlight so it becomes eligible as a custom Highlight cover. To do that, from your profile, just tap and hold on the Highlight you want to customize and choose “Edit.
” You’ll land on a screen like this:
You’ll see the option to choose which Stories are in or out. If you swipe right, you’ll see your Story Archive. Slide over and select your icon if it’s not selected already. You’ll want your custom Instagram Highlights cover story at the end so people don’t miss the actual Highlight.
Step 7:Swipe back to the “Highlighted” tab. You should see that the Story with your icon is included at the end. Tap “Edit Cover” and choose your icon using the slider on the bottom. You can pinch and drag to zoom and position the icon before you finalize the cover. When you’re finished, just tap “Done.”
Want a shortcut for creating Instagram highlight covers?
Not keen on creating your own Instagram highlights from scratch? No worries! Canva also has dozens of pre-designed Instagram highlights cover templates, complete with cute graphics and illustrations. Just head to the template library and search ‘Instagram highlight cover’ to check out what’s on offer.
Customize them with your own brand colors and you’re good to go!
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10 examples of beautiful Instagram highlight covers
Now that you know how to create custom Instagram highlights covers, you can pull on your arty-farty pants. Need some inspiration? Here are some stunning Instagram highlight covers that bring the ‘wow’ factor.
Instagram highlight cover #1: @amyporterfield
Instagram highlight cover #2: @refinery29
Instagram highlight cover #3: @netflix
Instagram highlight cover #4: @the_indigo_project
Instagram higlight cover #5: @spell
Instagram highlight cover #6: @getoffline.co
Instagram highlight cover #7: @lonelyplanet
Instagram highlight cover #8: @goaldiggerpodcast
Instagram highlight cover #9: @growglow.co
Instagram highlight cover #10: @vitablevitamins
How to make Highlights (relevant stories) for Instagram? Instruction | Alliance of Free Entrepreneurs
Instagram has long been not just a visual social network, but a real platform for promoting projects.
Therefore, it is no longer possible to ignore Instagram today, because it has the most active audience.
We need to use Instagram to develop and promote our project, and the most interesting thing is that Instagram itself gives us such tools. For example, current stories. Firstly, they allow you to beautifully design your account, and secondly, they help customers navigate the page, and therefore increase sales.
In current stories, you can place information about the product, its production, about the company, prices, cooperation, customer reviews, interesting events of the company.
Thus, all important information about the project is in the current stories, and after viewing them, the client decides whether your product is interesting to him or not.
Covers for current stories can be ordered from the designer, or you can make your own. And here are some ways.
1. Install the PicsArt application.
2. In the PicsArt application, select the "+" button.
3. Then we select a colorless background and the application offers options for the background that we will edit. Here you can use the programs offered to us, or you can upload your own.
4. After you have chosen a background, go to the "Tools - crop" section and select "History", that is, the application crops the background just for stories.
5. Now we need to overlay icons on this background. To do this, we go to flaticon.com, select the icons we are interested in and download them.
6. We return to the PicsArt application again and now click on the "+ photo" button. Add our icon and save the image. The current story is ready.
Now it remains to place this story in stories and create relevant stories. If you already have a section of current stories, then you can simply edit the cover. This is done as follows: go to the current story, click on the three dots at the bottom, then click on the "Edit current" button, go to the current one and select "Edit cover", add our image.
Thus, the new cover for current stories is ready.
The second way to design relevant stories is using the Pinterest social network, where you can find beautiful images for the query “Story cover”, by the way, icons can also be found here. And the cover should be made according to the example above. Also, in the PicsArt application, you design the cover and set it to the current one.
Thus, you can easily design your account and make it beautiful and attractive. After all, people are always interested to know what's behind the beautiful cover.
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Do you want to know what is the trick of advertising in Instagram Stories?
Then read the article “Instagram ads in the Stories section” right now.
Highlights on Instagram - how to add actual pinned Stories
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Highlights on Instagram or actual (pinned) Stories appeared quite recently, but are already actively used by many commercial accounts. Highlights made it possible to significantly expand the information content of the header of the business profile on Instagram .
The information that does not fit in the profile description or is relevant in connection with any holiday (February 23, March 8), can now be placed just below the description in the form of pinned Stories.
Program for promotion on Instagram - SocialKit:
- Collecting and filtering the target audience
- Masslooking, massfollowing, massliking
- Delayed posting of photos, videos and stories
- Mailing in Direct, autoresponder
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Where highlights are located on Instagram
Highlights are located below the description and above the content posted in the account (marked as Hot for account owners).
Displayed only on the main profile page.
Most often used to post a price list, answer frequently asked questions, highlight current promotions, present new products, and so on. They are a set of Stories collected in one album, with an arbitrary name.
How to make and add a pinned story
To make a pinned story, add a normal story. We talked about how to do this in the article about Instagram Stories .
After publishing a Story, open it and click on the heart icon, then confirm that you want to highlight the story.
The second way to add a pinned story is from the main page of the account by clicking on the big plus. After that, you can select any of the previously published Stories or create a new one. Having marked the necessary Stories, then we come up with a name for the collection and click "Finish".
The album cover will be selected automatically, but it can be changed by clicking "Edit cover" and selecting any of the Stories in the collection as the cover.
After the done manipulations, the created collection will appear in the "Actual" section in your profile.
Ideas for using highlights on Instagram
- Products/services catalog - to simplify the search for products on your account, you can place the main ones in pinned Stories.
- Portfolio - divide your completed works or cases into areas and fix them on the main profile page.
- Archive of photos dedicated to one topic. For example, "Journey to Italy" or "Opening of an exhibition of paintings by Van Gogh."
- Content rubricator - we save Stories by subject for each album.
- Instructions - for example, on how to place an order on the site.
Surely, while you were reading our ideas, an insight came to you and you came up with at least a few more ways to use the Highlights function.
Cool video ideas for Instagram
How to edit or remove Highlights
Remove from current.
