Slides where the first one earns the swipe and the last one earns the save.
The standard
Reference pieces by other creators, chosen to set the bar for posts & carousels. Our own named client work lives on how we work.
01Social Media Carousel Design
Tanvir Islam · Behance
02Social Media Carousel Design
Tanvir Islam · Behance
03Hunter Burgers – Social Media Designs
Roar Agency · Behance
04Visual Identity for a Mental Health Project
Liza Kyselova · Behance
05ONYX: Bold Fashion Instagram Pack
Lunaria · Behance
06Poosh
Nice People · Behance
A carousel is a retention format wearing a picture’s clothes.
- 01Slide one opens a loop rather than summarising — a cover that answers the question is a cover nobody swipes past.
- 02The payoff is front-loaded into slides three to seven, which is where engagement concentrates and where people stop.
- 03One grid, one type scale, one colour logic across every slide, so the set reads as a single object in the feed.
- 04Safe areas respected: content inside 1000x1270 on a 4:5, and 250 pixels clear at the foot of slide one where the swipe indicator sits.
Instagram weighs time spent and swipe-through rate, which makes a carousel closer to a short video than to a poster, each slide’s only job is to earn the next one. That is why the format punishes decks: a beautiful slide with nothing unresolved on it is where the swiping stops. It also has more room than most people use. The cap has been 20 slides since 2023 and the average brand is still making ten.
What you get
[ 4 deliverables ]- 1080x1350 at 4:5, or 1080x1440 at 3:401
- Up to 20 slides, one grid held across all of them02
- Text inside the 1000x1270 safe area, 250px clear at the bottom of slide one03
- Editable source file on delivery04
Also in Graphics
The whole category- 01YouTube thumbnailsLegible at 168 pixels wide, because that is the size the decision is made at.6 references
- 02Product imageryMarketplace-legal on the main image, art-directed on every one after it.6 references
- 03Photo retouchingFrequency separation, dodge and burn, and skin that still has pores in it.6 references