CREATIVE PRODUCTION
Instagram is a name as iconic as they come. My opportunity to work on the Instagram Brand Design Team is nothing short of incredible, to say the least.
Within my team of four colleagues, I managed Instagram's design channel. Going from managing my personal account of a little over 500 followers to an account with close to 750,000 was quite the learning experience.
#MYWORK
My team strives to establish Instagram as a leading voice in design by celebrating the craft and creativity of the global design community.
I contributed in three key areas with this goal in mind:
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PRODUCTION
My biggest responsibility falls under the category of content creation & production.
To start us off, we have...
In the first weeks of development, I conduct research on IG as well as off-platform.
We want our content to be:
We keep this front of mind for all of our different series. I lead research for 6 of them.
Here's just a few links to my favorites:
After finishing research, I begin...
This is honestly my favorite part of the entire process.
The reason I studied journalism in my undergraduate career was to have the opportunity to speak to and learn from as many people as I could.
I apply this principle at this step which involves four major parts:
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Receiving the joy and appreciation of the potential features I contact is something that never gets old.
I collect the image(s) that we hope to feature and begin the interview process. I love hearing the stories behind every image we feature. Afterwards, we like to stay in touch with people we work with.
Then, we move to step 3...
It's time to put it all together.
I design and lay out story posts using Figma.
I write captions and test different hashtags for our feed posts using internal tools.
I have fun with it.
Below, you'll find three of my favorite posts that I have been involved in producing.
Once the post is done and shared with the world, we move to the ongoing final step...
We are always reviewing our work to see what worked and what didn't. We don't get any shortcuts or advantages by being an official part of Instagram.
To do this, I use the on-platform Insights tool as well as off-platform apps, such as CrowdTangle.
We constantly set new goals for ourselves so that we continue growing and taking the account to new heights.
COMMUNICATION
With everything we do, it can be easy to lose track of the "little things."
I have the daily task of managing the upkeep of the @design account.
This includes: responding to DMs, managing comments and interacting with other Instagram official accounts.
We're the bridge between the design community of Instagram and Instagram itself and I embrace this relationship in my interactions.
INTERNAL PROJECTS
How might we function best within our scope of the company?
Using both camaraderie and data, I lead two projects that address this question.
Every week, my team presents an "Account of the Week" to the entire Instagram Design Team.
I lead research and production on this series.
Below, you'll find some of my favorite accounts we've featured.
This internal project is meant to be fun and inspiring for our employees so that we can celebrate the beauty of Instagram.
The next internal project I lead primarily focuses on efficiency for our team.
Coming into my internship, there was no centralized database of every account we had ever worked with or wanted to work with.
So, I made it.
Creating it required entering hundreds of lines of data by hand as well as building a "Filtering" feature.
It was definitely worth it, as it our work more efficient and expansive.
CONCLUSION
Simplicity. Craft. People First.
These are the three values we hold at the core of the design team and these are the values I take into my work every single day.
If you have a particular favorite post from the account or would like to hear more, contact me. I'd love to talk about it.