From posts, comments, stories, and now Instagram Reels, Instagram is the platform to master and focus your design efforts on. In this post, we provide the best templates and creative outlets to make your stories pop and captivate your audience.

You don’t think your way to creative work. You work your way to creative thinking. –George Nelson

In today's creative space, there are a plethora of apps and templates that can provide a unique story design in seconds. These are great! However, if you don't have a plan of attack or aesthetic idea then this can get a tad bit messy. Let's go over a few preplanning design tips that will create a structured and cohesive layout.

Design Tips

1. Start with a storyboard
   1. A storyboard reveals whether a concept will work or not. Deciding what your goal is based on the purpose of the story should be the first aspect discussed. Utilizing a storyboard conveys how the story will flow, as you can see how each panel will work together. It also allows you to see potential problems that would not go unnoticed, ultimately confusing your audience. 
   2. If you’re wanting to promote a recent blog post, build a storyboard around several of your key tips or points that entice viewers to click through. Or you might put together a storyboard that showcases how to use your product or service. The possibilities are endless, but having a plan in place can help make your entire design process that much easier.
2. Consistent design style
   1. Consider putting together a style guide specific to which font choices, filters, GIF types, and more, that your company can utilize from IG Stories to continue to stay branded. This is helpful when you build/grow your team so you can have a set format for your designers to build off of. 
   2. Here is an example of many design templates that are easy to stick with and build upon as your ideas grow. This is especially helpful when you are trying to stay consistent! https://www.visme.co/templates/brand-guidelines/
3. Branded Identity
   1.  Having your brand kit ready to go with your color hex codes, your fonts, your logo and more. Incorporating your brand fonts and colors helps with brand recognition when your followers are simply scrolling through their stories. Think about when you see a Coke, Apple or Mcdonalds commercial and how often you recognize the brand within 1-3 seconds of the ad based on the colors/fonts. Your users will see one of your graphics and automatically know it belongs to your company, without even having to see your username.

Since Instagram Stories have been around for a while now, many creators have made templates and tutorials to allow quick learning and easy processing.

Check out this list of design resources from Apps to Tutorials that will spark your creative thinking and get you moving to create the most desirable panels! 

Instagram Mini Classes - Kat Coroy

This website offers AMAZING mini-tutorials. Kat provides mini-tutorials that are crazy easy to follow and vibrant enough to be relevant to any project. Don't believe us? Check it out here: https://katcoroyblog.com

For example, check out this post where she focuses on creating bold headlines. You can follow along to the video that is short and sweet. https://katcoroyblog.com/blog/boldheadlines

Make it simple, but significant.”–Don Draper

Other Design Apps:

• Over's Design Templates -  pre-designed layouts created by in-house graphic designers that are completely customizable — you can create stories that match your Instagram aesthetic seamlessly and showcase your business in just minutes, using only your phone! Make a visual impact.

• Pinterest Designs - Pinterest is always a great resource for innovative designs provided by peers and professionals. 
• Storyluxe - The app is packed with a wide variety of dynamic Instagram story templates, including the polaroid & instant film templates, neon, floral, and many more. It’s known for having the most current and creative templates out there. 
• Unfold - Unfold exploded onto the scene this year with its library of clean and modern templates. It’s now one of the most popular template apps for Instagram Stories.
• Storyboost - Storyboost has animated text options that helps bring your posts to life, making even a simple product photo dynamic and super-engaging. 
• Later - By scheduling your content in advance, you can make sure you’re posting consistently and staying top of mind with your followers.
• InShot - The InShot Video Editor takes your existing video and allows you to change it into various aspect ratios, and you can easily resize and crop it to fit Instagram Stories

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