Did you spend ages honing your Instagram images into perfect squares for your profile grid? Things might be about to take a visually awkward turn for you if this test gets rolled out onto the full platform and switches the familiar grid to a rectangular grid, just like the stories page.
It's not the first time it's been discussed, but the Verge is reporting that a more recent (and very convincing) version of a 4 by 5 vertical profile is being tested, and, moreover, Adam Mosseri – head of Instagram – talks about it in the video below.
He says: "The vast majority of what is uploaded now is vertical, and quotes him as saying: “Squares are from way back in the day when you can only upload square photos to Instagram,” a limitation Instagram removed all the way back in 2015"
📲Instagram is officially testing a vertical (portrait) profile grid. pic.twitter.com/cYTKkM6wEZAugust 17, 2024
That makes it sound like he's pretty set on doing it and, in the process, making Instagram's iconic 1:1 profile page look like, well, everything else.
That, despite the fact he openly acknowledges it "could be annoying for some of you who really spent time curating and making sure everything lines up."
To get an idea what the new shape might look like – which Instagram says it is testing – @arlespinzon has shared an image on Threads:
I was expecting Instagramers to react with horror to this – but negative responses are surprisingly hard to find. Many users already prioritise the Reels feature which is already this shape and – while some are horrified by vertical format video – it is mathematically the most common among users.
It's easy to see the commercial sense. Aside from the popularity of vertical, he mentions in the video, you could argue he is taking the view that a new format will force enthusiastic users to refresh content – potentially a good thing in terms of engagement – while releasing others from shackles they've made for themselves.
Perhaps Mosseri was right to say that cropping modern content to squares was "pretty brutal," but I imagine there will still be some hostility; the video he posted was, after all, a response to a suspicious query made to an 'Ask me anything' session he was hosting.
You can see more of his insights into what might happen next at Instagram simply by following his account (though I can't find the video above in the feed).
