Instagram can be an effective tool for making connections, finding opportunities, and reaching your target audience. However, it can be hard to reach your account’s full potential without a practical strategy! For the month of September, I’ll be showing you 4 ways you can upgrade your Instagram. This week, let’s talk about color flow.
First things first, read part one from last week if you haven’t already done so. This series builds on itself, and I don’t want you to miss a thing!
Let’s talk about why color is important. When a brand looks consistent across online platforms, the brand’s audience will perceive a sense of professionalism and credibility.
Color flow involves two primary elements:
accent colors & color grading
First, let’s talk about accent colors. An accent color gives your feed a sense of cohesion. It can be used to nod at the current season and provide added visual interest.
Over the summer, I featured sunshine yellow on my feed as my accent color. This particular hue has been prominent in fashion this year, and gave my feed extra summer vibes!
Right now, I’m phasing out the bright yellow in favor of shades of red -from cherry to burgundy. I’m tempering by the red with blue-gray and cream to prevent my feed from looking too busy.
The second part of achieving color flow is matching color grading. Images can be categorized as either warm or cool, particularly in regard to skintone. If warm and cool images are alternated on a feed, the result is visually jarring. Paying attention to warm vs. cool-toned images is particularly important if you are obtaining images from another source (multiple photographers, reposted images, etc.). Choose to use either warm or cool images on your feed and stick to it!
For example, I tend to create warm images with peachy skintones. Because I consistently edit warm and peachy, my images flow together well. If I were to throw in a cool-toned image, it would disrupt the flow of my feed and stick out awkwardly.
Below, you can see my mistake in my feed. The circled image (my rottweiler, Quorra) is cooler-toned than the rest of my feed. While it’s not technically a cool edit (see the peach tones in the highlights?), it doesn’t match the feed well.
Bonus points: incorporate your brand colors into your feed!
In addition to both using accent colors and color grading, I always include my brand colors within my first nine. My primary brand colors are medium pinks and burgundy; forest green is my secondary color.
One of the best ways to keep your color flow looking amazing is by working with a professional photographer to create custom imagery for your brand. When I create a brand gallery, I work hard to ensure that the color grading is consistent and the whole gallery translates easily onto the brand’s online platforms.
To find out how a personal brand session can boost your brand, click here: https://elizabethaimages.com/personal-brand/
-Elizabeth A.
Read the other 3 parts of this blog series by choosing a button below.