The 8 Best Instagram Highlight Ideas to Try

The Instagram Stories format appeared in 2016. Inspired by Snapchat’s disappearing feature, Instagram Stories has become a big part of the social network, and both individuals and brands are putting more and more effort into embracing the powerful Stories format.

You may wonder why brands would invest time and effort into creating visual communications that only last 24 hours. Instagram must have asked the same question, so they made the Stories Highlights feature, which brands use to better communicate their products and services as well as brand their account as a whole.

Unlike Insta-stories, the highlights remain on your profile permanently, making the most out of your account. The highlight bar navigates your brand’s media storage. The best way to effectively direct potential customers to the content you want them to see first is to add win-win covers to your highlights.

The first impression is vital. Read on and learn how to make your Insta-account engaging and visually appealing with our best aesthetic highlight ideas. Get ready to create fun, eye-catching covers that will resonate with your company’s brand identity.

Minimalistic Design

Old but gold. The rule “less is more” works especially well with design solutions. It helps to get rid of any excess and, therefore, unnecessary components that blur the first impression of you.

Minimalism is in the ranks of the most-liked Instagram highlight cover ideas. It’s no wonder, as this is an effective approach to creating a stylish look with an elegant effect.

Keep in mind the key features of the minimalistic design:

• simplicity
• neat thin lines with sleek lettering (the right font will best demonstrate your personality and define your brand identity)
• monochromatic palette with color used as an accent
• geometric or smooth shapes as the logo

The popularity of minimalism proves its great aesthetics. Well-designed minimalistic Instagram highlight covers are always a win-win option as they have a modern progressive look, which can’t leave anyone indifferent.

Icons and Emojis

You can make up custom highlight covers with icons or fun emojis to accent your highlight titles. These are excellent options if you want to add visual interest and let potential followers understand what your Instagram story highlights are about without checking them.

Icons and emojis are among those visual cues that lessen the possibility of confusion about the subject of your highlights.

For instance, if you have a highlight reel of the backstage process, you can use an icon or emoji of a camera to indicate that.

Colors

As an alternative to icons and emojis, colors are a great way to grab attention and make users remember your Instagram page due to the human tendency of association.

Do you have a specific color theme you usually stick with? If yes, use it for your Instagram highlight covers to attract the attention of your followers or visitors and stand out from the rest.

What could be better than making your Instagram account highly recognizable? Colors are the easiest way to achieve this.

No matter whether these are bright, eye-catching hues or calm pastel colors. The most important thing is they must work with your aesthetic and best reflect your personality.

Go for colors and create a professional and stylish look for your Instagram profile.

Pop Art

What is your first association with pop art? Maybe it’s Andy Warhol and his famous Campbell’s Soup Cans or Banana?

Creating highlight covers in pop-art style is absolutely fresh, trendy, and attention-grabbing.

If, for example, you are a foodie blogger or a restaurant business owner, you may turn an ordinary image of a Greek salad into fine art.

Before sticking in to pop-art Instagram highlights, check out the essential characteristics:

• everyday imagery (items from grocery stores, household appliances, or cosmetics – everything can be utilized in pop art)
• vibrant, bright colors (primarily red, yellow, and blue pigments)
• irony and satire
• repetition

Product Images

If you’re promoting a specific product on your Instagram account, showcase images of that product on your highlight covers. This will serve as a pointer and let users quickly identify which highlights they want to watch.

Using real product images for Instagram highlight covers is a great idea for various brands to create a live magazine with a well-ordered range of products.

The main thing is not to litter the horizon of your pics. As cover images have relatively small sizes, you should work on a light, preferably white, background to make your product look visible from afar.

One more advantage of product image covers is that you can edit your highlights every time you launch a new product. This ensures that there is always fresh new content for your followers to scroll through.

Vintage

One more great idea for stylizing your highlight covers is vintage. Many people on social media fancy the nostalgic vibe, so you can easily incorporate it into your page aesthetics and communicate vintage elegance through your brand’s face.

Stick to cartoon textures and a subdued color scheme to create a real retro atmosphere. You may combine key features and specific vintage compositions with the added modern elements in high digital quality.

This is a perfect way to demonstrate your brand’s longevity and share your history.

Black-and-White

Black and white is an eternal classic. When choosing this style for your Instagram highlight covers, you’ll automatically make your page look highly professional. Nothing, in fact, conveys more solidity and a sense of style than a black-and-white combination.

Go for high-quality images. If you don’t have your own, you can always check out various platforms with extensive professional photo stock collections and find your perfect match.

Black-and-white is a no-lose choice that makes it easy to highlight the most important moments. For example, you can temporarily make one of the icons colored to draw one’s attention to a particular campaign.

Real Photos

If you want to highlight some significant or authentic moments of your company or demonstrate the best products, try real photos.

Whether you are a start-up or a medium-sized business, this is a perfect way to showcase your confidence, success, and uniqueness.

Remember about the ‘clean’ background. If, for instance, you want to set a photo from your brand’s anniversary or some other important event, try to make it as high-quality as possible using a white background. Thus your potential customers will have a clear understanding of what you are about.

Using real photos for your Instagram highlight covers will definitely help you allure users to explore your brand more.

Tips for Creating Killer Instagram Highlight Covers

When it comes to creating an effective and win-win Instagram story highlight cover, you need to work on making it as appealing and attention-grabbing as possible. But how do you do that? Check out some useful tips.

Keep It Straightforward and Simple

Overly complicated designs are not about killer highlight covers! Remember about minimalism: less is better.

If you are, for instance, a vegan sweets brand, your highlight covers should emphasize your products so that they are visually perceivable at a glance.

Busy patterns and littered cover images will confuse potential customers making them forget what they were looking for.

Make It Informative

As you only have a couple of seconds for a person to decide whether your page is something they’re looking for, you need to make it count!

Draw in users by creating informative titles for your highlight covers. Make them short, catchy, and snappy to intrigue users about your content and make them stay on your page and watch the story highlights.

Also, cover images must correlate to the title. It will make it easier for users to determine what they are interested in.

Add a Bit of Humor

Humor is a powerful instrument that creates a positive atmosphere and a desire to stay longer and check more. Adding a bit of humor will make your highlight cover more engaging and attractive.

If you are able to make people laugh, they will more likely check your story highlights all along the way. Just mind not to overdo it – you don’t want your covers to seem corny or unprofessional.

Innovation is Key

When designing your Instagram highlight covers, don’t forget about adding a key ingredient – innovation.

Instead of copy-pasting designs from other well-liked Insta-pages, try making up your own using a unique and creative approach.

Experiment with icons, emojis, colors, fonts, and lines until you find something that works best for your brand.

There are no limits in terms of creativity — as long as it matches your brand tone and style.

To Sum Up

So, have you already picked your favorite Instagram highlight idea? Of course, it’s hard to make a choice when there are so many options out there. Take your time and try several alternatives to choose the one that will best fit your brand’s identity.

Visual aesthetics are an integral part of one’s success on each social media platform. It’s a powerful tool for drawing potential customers to explore your brand more and stay longer on your page.

Apart from Instagram highlight covers, you should also manage your posts so that the general picture looks impeccable and attention-grabbing.

If you want to reach the apogee of aesthetics and have an Insta-account that is hard to leave, check our easy-to-use visual calendar and create a perfect visual that couldn’t leave anyone indifferent.

Plenty of more great opportunities for managing your social media accounts quickly and easily are available here.