Tips For Creating An Instagram Theme

Instagram is an app I’ve always loved! I ‘got it’ way before I got into Twitter because it’s picture based rather than word based. I’ve always struggled with words more than pictured because of my dyslexia & Mears-Irlen syndrome. Twitter has become easier for me since the introduction of images, but Instagram was my first love. I’ve really been trying to up my Instagram game recently, particularly in respect of creating a theme. It’s something I’ve wanted to be able to do for such a long time, but never really known how to go about it. I’m still in the early stages of my theme & am tweaking all the time, but I wanted to share with you some of the things I’ve learnt or discovered so far to help you create your own Instagram theme if, like me, you had no clue where to start! Why not start by checking my Instagram account out if you haven’t already!

My top tip for starting an Instagram theme would be to start! We are constantly tweaking our pictures to make sure we’re improving & your Instagram theme will be no different. If you don’t start, you’re loosing time that you could be refining your theme.

Think about what you want your Instagram theme to look like. Do you like bright colours? Do you like black & white images? Maybe you like bright or dark photos? What ever it is that you like, identify it! This could be through looking through other people’s Instagram feeds, creating mood boards on Pinterest or gaining inspiration from the decor of your house! Once you have a basic idea of what you want, you can start experimenting with converting it in pictures.

So how did my Instagram theme come about?

I kinda stumbled on my theme. It cam about when I had nothing to post. I loved creating flat lays of the makeup products I was using for a look, so decided to take pictures of makeup items in a similar style & post these so I had content going up. I really liked the look of them next to each other & I got more likes per picture. I took part in a webinar about improving your Instagram feed, which for the most part was pretty pointless, but in one of the accounts that was featured every third photo was of a different pair of converse. I really liked this idea, as it gave flexibility so didn’t limit what I could post in my other 2 pictures, but also gave a sense of uniformity. So the first thing I did was to start posting makeup flat lays every third image.

I really liked the format of every third photo being a flat lay, but I still wasn’t happy with my feed. When I posted the two pictures of my Oval-8 finger splints, which I use to stop my fingers bending back too much because of my EDS. I also posted some pictures of the cats, taken in the evening with the lights on. These looked too warm toned to me in relation to my more staged photos like the makeup flat lays. I suddenly realised why I wasn’t happy. The mix of dark & light, warm & cool images really wasn’t working for me. From this point on, I tried to use only light, bright images in my feed, which I’m a lot happier about.

My next Instagram theme tweak came from a conversation on Twitter. I saw April Todd talking about themes & asked for tips. April was fab & asked me what key point I wanted to come across in my photos (bright colours, etc.). I’d been thinking for a long time that it would be fun to tint all my pictures with a hint of green to give a ‘looking through my eyes’ feel because of my need to wear my precision tinted lenses. I’d tried doing this once before in my Aquis Hair Towel picture I posted to Instagram, but I didn’t like the effect so gave up on the idea. April was really enthusiastic about it when I told her, so I decided to give it another shot! I’m really pleased I did. You might not be able to tell that my photos have a tint on them, unless you compare them side by side (see below), but I like that the effect is subtle. After all, I don’t feel like I constantly see the world in various shades of green!

My first green tinted photo in my Instagram theme & on it’s own

Picture before tint (left) & picture after tint (right)

I’m not going to talk about how I edit my photos in this post, as I think that would make it too long. If you want a post like that, just let me know! What I will say though is that, to tint my photos, I use VSCO Cam. This app is really useful if you’re trying to create an Instagram theme as you can see how your pictures will all look together before you post them! I like this element as it avoids the element of surprise. I’d hate not knowing if a picture would fit properly with my theme until I posted it. I think this feature of VSCO Cam has greatly contributed to me being able to create a theme & not giving up with it.

Something else I’d suggest is to consider whether you want to use a border round your photos. Because my photos aren’t all taken in the same lighting conditions, their warmth/coolness can vary. While I know you can adjust these, it’s not so easy when you can edit them next to your other photos so you know how far to reduct/add tone. With a border round my images, there is a larger margin for error. The border allows the eye to make more allowances for differences & they become less noticeable than if the photos are directly next to each other or separated by Instagram’s tiny white line.

I really hope these tips have been helpful. I’m no expert, but have enjoyed setting up my Instagram theme & have learnt a lot in doing it. I’d love to know your thoughts on my theme, make sure to leave me tips on how I can improve it further!

Do you have a theme? How did you come up with it? What are your tips for creating an Instagram theme?

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