Instagram stories are known among users as the best social media platform for sharing parts of your life on their “story” feature. Instagram’s editing within their “story” options are the most updated and most advanced when it comes to writing your own words with their pens to editing photos and adding gifs or stickers. With the popularity of instagram for influencers and businesses the use for “stories” to promote yourself or your business to draw in followers and customers is at the height of popularity.
As a graphic design student I’ve noticed that many stories use similar basic design elements that we are taught to use for our designs i.e. an underlying grid, hierarchy, type choice and placement.. And so on, and influencers and marketers for companies have been using these tools to create commercially designed looking “stories” for their Instagram platform. In the picture at the beginning of this post I screenshotted a “How To” video that I’ve seen floating around Pinterest for awhile now on how to make your posts aesthetically pleasing and more designer looking. When looking at internships on various sites I’ve also seen the position of “Social Marketing Intern” with the description of “Social Media Platform Posts” as a requirement and skill that this student must have, but I hardly see this for the Graphic Design internships which is interesting.
When it comes to the future and where Graphic Designers may need to broaden their talents in, I’m in the opinion that social media platforms are going to become more and more popular as time goes on – we already know that “in a world where we’re more connected than ever, we’re the loneliest we’ve ever been” is a fact that has been trickling around in articles and social science posts, and with this people are going to want to feel connected socially through their devices even more so. I believe that as a Graphic Designer we’ll need to be updated with social media platform designs, moving media, and videos to continue being successful in our careers as designers. So find that artsy mural to stand in front of kids, and start snapping away cause “influencers” aren’t going anywhere and if we can’t beat’ em’, join’ em’.
