New Instagram Wordmark, Reach Myths & Trial Reels Strategy from the Head of Instagram

Let's get into the questions and answers from the head of Instagram.

And first, if you are not familiar, Instagram changed their word mark.

Now, when you open the app, at the top, the word Instagram is in a slightly different font.

It doesn't exactly look like the word Instagram.

It looks a bit like Instagzam.

I'm not gonna get into that too much, but the first question is, what is the reason for Instagzam?

So for those of you who don't know, we updated our word mark this week.

There's lots of memes today saying that the R looks like a Z.

Uh, I get it.

Um, but I do think that over time a lot of you are gonna learn not only to get used to the new word mark, but actually even enjoy it or love it, like we have over the last couple months.

The old logo was great, but it also didn't work at all with our core mark, and it felt pretty outdated at this moment, so we needed to move it forward.

And those script elements in the S and the G and the R are a way to nod back to that original word mark from 2016.

Uh, so check it out.

I'll post an image of this.

Uh, there's also actually a reel I thought was pretty clever or thoughtful as well about it as well that you can also check out.

I'll also post a link here.

For a little more information on this topic, someone asked: What is the process behind this word mark change?

So we wanted to refresh the word mark, and we decided to sometime last year.

Uh, we tried to work with a couple different designers and agencies, both internal and external.

We had them explore a variety of territories, so different directions or ideas.

One...

Some were very, very simple and sort of as you'd expect, sans serif, nothing particularly unique.

Others were throwbacks to lettering from the original i- app icon.

Others were related to ear- earlier analog cameras to sort of throw back to that heritage.

And then the territory that we settled on was this idea of a modern word mark that actually referenced script and the old script word mark.