What Can A Colour Theme Do To Your Instagram Feed?
Colour is important when it comes to photography. It doesn’t matter how good your scene is. In a strictly visual sense, colour is the first thing the viewer will see, so if it is not quite right – or if it has not been given due diligence – then the rest of the photograph will not be given a chance.
Before they take in the technical merit of a photograph, most people will be struck by the ways in which the photographer has used colour.
This is also true of social media platforms. Take Instagram, for instance. If you’re a budding photographer looking to grow your Instagram followers, the task of latching new people can be done through colour alone. It’s common practice to build an entire feed around a colour scheme that will hold attention and set your profile apart from all the others.
But how do you choose a colour scheme and – most importantly – how do you pull it off? To understand that, it is first important to know what a colour scheme can do to your Instagram profile:
The Wonder Of A Colour Scheme
Nearly all of the best Instagram accounts stick to a specific colour palette. This is not to say all the photos look and feel the same – oftentimes it might not even be noticeable – but throughout the feed there will be a single colour that pops in the photos and allows the feed to flow.
One of the reasons this is important is because of the professional glean it can spread across your profile. Whilst many photography focused Instagram profiles may mix and match their colours, choosing a solid theme can add a sense of professionalism and individuality that is lacking from other feeds.
If you stick to a specific colour scheme, your followers will begin to associate those colours with your profile, which will similarly instil an identity into your photos that makes them stand out.
The Importance For Your Own Portfolio
Colour schemes can also provide that much needed buzz-word in photography: flow. Visually, it is important that followers scroll through your Instagram and feel a sense of coherency.
This will add to the story created by your photographs and allow viewers to move seamlessly from one to the next.
This is also important for your own portfolio. If you create photo books straight from your Instagram, for instance, then it is important that they are coherent and fit as one book. If you have already considered a colour scheme, then this will help your book to tell a visual story and become far more aesthetically pleasing.
The Intricacies Of Choosing Your Colour Scheme
In terms of choosing your colour scheme, it is important to understand that the subject and topic of your photos are the core visual language. The colour scheme is simply there to draw people in and create coherency.
In this way, choosing your theme should be done by looking through your pre-existing work and searching for the predominant colours. Scroll through your Instagram page and portfolio, select a few of your favourite images and break them down into a palette. What tones have you been using? What colours have your own eyes been magnetised towards? Break them down into five key traits and go from there.
The Emotion Of Colours
It is also important to understand how you want the viewer to feel with these colours. As mentioned previously, colour is the first thing that they will see, so it should be both aesthetically pleasing and emotionally fulfilling too. Each colour radiates a different feeling. For instance:
- White equals purity, efficiency, and simplicity.
- Black equals power, elegance, and mystery.
- Red equals passion, love, and anger.
- Blue equals serenity, calmness, and security.
- Green equals peacefulness, rest, and balance.
There are key atmospheres and emotions that can be accentuated through each colour, so it is important to understand the emotion of your photography and the reaction you are wanting to harness in the observer.
The Subject Does The Talking, The Colour Gives The Heart
Remember, this is not about sticking to a single colour and narrowing down your photography. Your theme should be a colour or tone that you are already drawn towards, included intermittently in your profile.
Say you are going with a yellow theme, which is indicative of an energetic, cheerful mood. You don’t want your entire Instagram or photo book to be full of only yellow-centric photography. That will just be an eyesore.
Yellow should simply be the overriding theme, infused into the collection, but not in a way that will override your portfolio and rid it of variety. No photographer wants to be one-note, and no-one wants to look through a boring photography portfolio.
Above all, choosing your colour should be fun. If it is not fun, then something has gone wrong down the line, and your colour scheme should be reconsidered. Whatever you choose to do, make sure your identity and passions take the forefront and – above all – you are in love with the profile you are creating.
