Home | Learning Center

Search
Close this search box.
FREE: Get the #1 book on the fundamentals of proper logo design and company branding, written by George Ryan, CEO of Hatchwise

Home / Resources / Logo Design Case Studies and History

The History Of The Instagram Logo

Instagram homescreen image
Snip of the logo on Instagram home screen

Instagram serves roughly one billion active users globally, and as a photo-sharing app, it’s devoted immense sums of money to creating a memorable logo.

Before 2010, it may have been hard to imagine that a photo-sharing app would be worth billions and become a crucial income and marketing tool for millions of other brands.

The Instagram logo is prominent almost everywhere you look, and because of that weight, the company has gone to intense measures to ensure it’s just right.

As another successful start-up from Silicon Valley, Instagram was named by combining “instant” and “telegram” and is now the most popular platform for sharing photos and videos in the world.

Discover the Instagram logo, how the business came to be, and how its most recent logo iteration wholly departed from its original design but has remained one of the most recognizable logos across the globe.

About Instagram

Instagram was started by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. Initially launched in 2010 under the name Burbn, it was first a mobile check-in app similar to foursquare. Seeing the similarities and deciding to change gears, the founders shifted and created Instagram as a photo-sharing app.

In 2010, two venture capitalists from Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz provided the seed funding that Kevin and Mike needed to pursue this new goal. And shortly after, the app did something truly impressive.

In 2011, Instagram created a way to help users find certain types of photos with their new “hashtag” feature. Through relevant hashtags and the following of those key phrases, users could create specific niches on Instagram that they would see more often than generic posts.

In February 2012, Instagram introduced “Lux Filler,” which could improve the shadows, highlights, and contrast of the uploaded photos. With these and more impressive features, the app was able to gain even more investment funding.

In 2012, another powerful new feature was introduced, Instagram’s Explore. Explore displays popular photos, trending tags, and curated posts, and it can also look for locations. Later that same year, Instagram introduced its Website Profile, which allowed people to see users’ feeds from a web browser.

Android phone users got to try the app in April of 2012, and in under 24 hours, potential users downloaded the app more than one million times. It became an unprecedented moment for those who created the little app. Not even a full week after its release, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg bought Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock.

Facebook had become one of the most popular brands and had a massive virtual economy, which helped Instagram instantly become more popular than it would have on its own.

Instagram created a new feature in 2013 for users to create and share short videos. Later that year, Instagram launched Instagram Direct, which allowed users who follow each other to send private messages with photos and videos.

In 2015, Instagram replaced its angular picture profiles with circular ones and made the desktop interface minimalistic to resemble the mobile version better.

The following year Instagram launched the Windows 10 Mobile app, and it was a dream come true for Microsoft, which had the beta version of Instagram since 2013, allowing for the creation of posts and photo albums, as well as streaming lives and making videos.

In 2016, Instagram launched the Stories feature that allowed its users to take photos or videos and enhance them with effects and layers, which would be posted to a limited-time stories gallery, and they added the ability to like comments.

In 2018, Krieger and Systrom, the founders, decided to walk away from the product they had created and shock the world. They announced their decision to resign from Instagram in September, and then in October, Instagram appointed Adams Mosseri as the new head.

In 2020, the COVID–19 pandemic changed how everyone does business. Instagram responded by releasing Co-Watching, which allowed users to share posts over video calls. It was especially timely and helped us virtually connect with friends and loved ones as we all practiced social distancing.

Later that year, Instagram released Instagram Reels, which mimicked the functions of TikTok. Facebook also merged Instagram Direct into Facebook Messenger in the same month.

As you can see, the company has been through impressive growth over the years and continues to release new features and updates to remain current in the social media world. Its logo has also changed quite a bit.

Instagram’s Logo Over Time

Instagram’s logo had a similar theme for the first half of its life, but then in 2016, it took an entirely different turn. Let’s jump into the basis for the original design and what prompted the company to go through such a drastic change in its more recent years.

Instagram 2010 camera
Image source

The Original Logo (2010)

When Instagram first came on the scene, the logo was pretty straightforward. Systrom displayed a frontal shot of a Polaroid camera, and it looked more like just a photo or image than a proper logo. The word “Instagram” was inscribed in a tiny font on the left side of the camera.

The most distinctive part of the logo, which would continue to be an essential aspect of the design, was the rainbow band that ran vertically across the center of the camera. The rounded square shape also proved to be a critical element that would continue past this iteration of the logo. This logo stood out from the competition when it launched, but modern sensibilities wouldn’t keep it around for long.

Instagram logo 2010
Image source

The Instagram Logo from 2010-2011

The second emblem came out after a huge influx of visitors enjoyed not only publishing photos but also video clips. Systrom assigned its creation to designer and photographer Cole Rise. He captured the essence of the shutter that the original logo had tried to execute. Rise’s logo took its inspiration from the 1950s era Bell & Howell camera. The beige and brown logo was also more palatable in various sizes.

This icon was much more modern and followed “the relevance of requests,” updated to focus on the camera lens. The main lens focus was enlarged and centered. At the top right was the viewfinder window, and on the left were vertical rainbow stripes emerging from the abbreviated name “Inst.” It used the Billabong font.

Instagram 2011
Image source

Instagram’s Viewfinder Gets More Realistic (2011-2016)

In this third iteration of the logo, the details became much more realistic and had a more significant presence. The updates were subtle, and an untrained eye might even miss the update without close inspection. The camera’s top portion received a leathery texture, the lens got more realistic, including added depth and glare, and the logo gradients saw an improved contrast.

The rainbow strip now consisted of four primary colors — red, yellow, green, and blue — in broader strokes. The inscription was in title case and read “Insta,” adding the letter “a” to the abbreviation in bold serif.

A Drastic Change 2016-2022 

After years of similar logo updates, the Instagram logo designers made a huge change in 2016. The new logo still included the original elements; a rounded square, a polaroid look, and rainbow colors, yet incredibly, it looked totally different than it ever had. Instead of one strip of rainbow color, the colors in the new design were vibrant and engulfed the entire logo. To show that the rounded square was reminiscent of a camera, a simple white dot was placed in the corner on the top right, with a white circle in the center of the design.

The radical minimalism and abstract nature of this new logo caused a bit of an uproar on the internet. It showcased a much more two-dimensional look and focused on the warmer shades of the rainbow gradient without any green. All typography was eliminated, and the camera’s look was created with bold white lines.

The Current Instagram Logo Ups the Saturation (2022 – Present) 

The current Instagram logo is nearly identical to the previous one. The shape and contents saw no significant update. Instead, the color scheme was changed up just a bit.

The current iteration is much brighter and with the colors very saturated. The bias for the gradient is also more in the neon spectrum, which is why you see much more gold and pink-fuchsia tones.

The gradient creates an almost 3D-like effect because of the dynamic placement. Yellow, for example, begins in the middle and stretches to the bottom of the logo. Pink goes from top to bottom and flows to the right. The original blue is there but limited to the top left corner and much more purple.

Instagram Logo Key Elements

Even with the significant update that the logo saw, there were three key elements that remained throughout the history of the design.

1.  The Viewfinder

The camera’s viewfinder has always been important to the Instagram logo. While it was much more realistic and detailed in the beginning, you still see it today, represented by the circle within the rounded square and dot. This minimalist look creates an homage to the camera’s original shape.

2. The Rainbow Colors

The rainbow has always been present in the Instagram logo design in one way or another.

Instagram’s current logo focuses on color. The app has consistently showcased a rainbow in some form, and now that rainbow makes up the entire icon in the form of a gradient.

From the classic app icon to the filters and the community’s photos and videos, color is fundamental to the Instagram experience.

The design team created a more minimalistic, modern design when it was updated in 2016, but they also knew they needed warmth and energy to complement the icon.

It does a great job of representing the color you’ll find once you open the app, where it’s the community’s images and stories that do the talking.

3. The Rounded Square

The rounded square has also been a staple shape for the logo. From the early days of the updated viewfinder to the current gradient, that square with subtle corners has stuck around. It continues to do a fantastic job of evoking the feeling of a classic camera.

Conclusion

The Instagram logo, in all its various iterations, has always been a work of conscious creativity. It continues to give a nod to the traditional Polaroid, with its tell-tale circle within the square.

It evokes a sense of focus on life’s impactful moments and it reminds us to create memories.

Sharing colorful moments with friends and loved ones is what Instagram is all about, and its logo is an excellent representation of that.

While we might see more changes in the future, it’s unlikely that Instagram will even leave behind the icon of a camera or its colorful presentation.

Check out these awesome Logo Contests run on Hatchwise: