Post, story, landscape: which format for what
2 min read
Dimensions look trivial until the day a scorer's name slips under Instagram's interface. Three formats cover almost everything: the point is to know their risk zones.
The three useful formats
The 1080 × 1080 square is the reference for a post, readable everywhere. The 1080 × 1920 story offers the most surface, but the most crowded edges. The 1920 × 1080 landscape serves outside social media.
Safe zones, the part everyone forgets
On a story, the app occupies the top (bar, account name) and the bottom (reply zone): text placed there is hidden. Reserve about 250 pixels top and bottom; the essentials live in the central 1400 pixels.
The margins to respect:
- Story: 250 px top, 250 px bottom, 60 px on the sides.
- Square post: 60 px on every edge is enough.
- Profile thumbnail: the crop is circular: nothing essential in the corners.
On a story, the top and bottom 250 pixels belong to the app, not to your visual. Everything that matters lives in the central band.
One visual, three formats: adapting without starting over
Adapting a visual isn't adding colour bands. You rethink the layout: what sat side by side stacks one under the other. The data stays, the layout changes, exactly what Timline's multi-artboard approach does.
Resolution, weight and export
PNG for text and flat colour (line-up, score), JPG when a photo dominates. No point exceeding 1080 pixels wide for social media: only print justifies more.
Beyond Instagram: a club's other surfaces
Instagram isn't the only place: Facebook often keeps the widest audience (parents, committee members), and the square works fine there. Then there are the website, the clubhouse screen and WhatsApp, which depend on no algorithm.
Format to surface:
- 9:16 story: Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok.
- 1:1 post: Instagram feed, Facebook, profile archive.
- 16:9 landscape: club website, clubhouse screen, video thumbnail.
Frequently asked questions
- What size should a club's Instagram post be?
- 1080 × 1080 pixels. The 4:5 format (1080 × 1350) takes up more height in the feed and works well too, but it gets cropped to a square in the profile grid.
- Why is my text cut off on stories?
- Because it sits in the zones occupied by the app's interface. Reserve 250 pixels at the top and bottom of a 1920-pixel-tall visual.
- Should I export as PNG or JPG?
- PNG for visuals dominated by text and flat colour, like a line-up or a score. JPG when a photograph occupies most of the visual.
Enter the fixture once, the visuals follow
Announcements, line-ups, results and player focus, generated from your data.
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- Building your match-day packOne match, six visuals. Made one at a time, that's a whole evening. Thought of as a series, it's ten minutes.