Instagram, the iconic social network for sharing photos and videos, could soon experience a small visual revolution. The platform is currently testing a major change in the display format of publications on users’ profiles. No more traditional squares, make way for vertical rectangles! An experiment that will not fail to shake up the habits of the most meticulous users in the organization of their profile grid
A major change in perspective
Instagram is currently experimenting with a potentially big change to its profile pages: replacing the traditional grid squares with vertical rectangles. Some users recently spotted this test, and there have been hints since at least 2022 that the company was considering a rectangular grid.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri explained in a story on Friday:
The vast majority of what’s posted on Instagram today is vertical. It’s either 4×3 for photos or 9×16 for videos, and cropping them to square is pretty brutal.
The squares actually date back to the time when only square photos could be posted, a limitation lifted by Instagram in 2015.
A challenge for careful users
Mosseri acknowledges that the profile change could be awkward for people who have spent a lot of time “organizing and making sure everything lines up.” But he says he wants to “better showcase today’s content.”
An Instagram spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that this was a “limited test” and that the company would be “listening to community feedback before rolling anything out more broadly.” But if you’ve been meticulously planning your profile grid around squares, you might want to prepare yourself for those squares to one day turn into rectangles.
Clues since 2022
Engineer Alessandro Paluzzi had already spotted in 2022 that Instagram was working on an option to choose between a 4:5 format and the square format for profile grids. Two years later, this change seems about to come to fruition, at least for some users.
#Instagram is working on a setting to change the aspect ratio of your profile grid between 4:5 and square format ? pic.twitter.com/vmr3Xieukk
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) November 15, 2022
A glimpse of this potential evolution is already visible in the video tab of profiles, where clip previews are already displayed in rectangular format. It remains to be seen how users will react to this upheaval of the aesthetic so emblematic of Instagram.
One thing is for sure: even if squares disappear, the creativity of Instagrammers to enhance their profiles will not die out. New visual codes will certainly emerge to make the most of this vertical format. Instagram has not finished surprising us in its quest to adapt to current uses and content, especially in the face of TikTok.
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