Instagram is an aesthetic platform where aesthetics matter, and Instagram Highlight Covers can help establish and reinforce brand identities while organizing content easily for access. Businesses, influencers, and casual users can utilize Highlight Covers as an easy and visually pleasing way of sharing essential stories – perfect for personal branding or marketing! Understanding how to create Instagram Highlight Covers will undoubtedly enhance your profile’s visual appeal and overall visibility on Instagram.
What Are Instagram Highlight Covers?
Instagram Highlights Covers are customized thumbnail images that appear above your feed on Instagram. They act as clickable categories for saved Instagram Stories and allow users to revisit important material long after its 24-hour lifespan has passed. Brands and content creators frequently utilize this feature to organize valuable promotions, FAQs, tutorials, or behind-the-scenes footage into manageable blocks of information.
Why Are Instagram Highlight Covers Necessary?
Instagram can be highly competitive, with users making snap decisions about which accounts to follow within seconds of viewing their profiles. A custom highlight cover instantly creates a polished and professional appearance on an account’s Instagram profile – offering several key benefits of custom Instagram Highlight Covers like these. These could include:
- Brand Consistency: Utilizing similar colors, fonts, and icons ensures a recognizable brand image.
- Better Organization: Enabling users to organize the most crucial content quickly and effortlessly is vitally important.
- Increased Engagement: Highlights invite users to interact with older Stories, keeping them interested and engaged with your content.
- Professional Aesthetic: An elegant design makes any account appear more curated and visually attractive, drawing users’ eyes toward it.
How To Create Custom Instagram Highlight Covers (PHIC Covers)

There are multiple approaches for designing Instagram Highlight Covers, from using professional graphic design software and apps with no design experience all the way down to simple apps requiring no prior design knowledge or skill set.
1. Employ Graphic Design Tools
Canva, Snappa, and Adobe Spark provide ready-made templates for designing Instagram highlight covers me. Users can customize colors, fonts, icons, and images according to their brand or personal taste.
2. Leveraging Instagram Stories
For an easier approach, Instagram Stories provides the tools for quickly creating highlight covers. Simply add background colors or icon/text combinations before saving them as a highlight story!
3. Hiring A Designer
For those seeking to achieve a truly professional appearance, hiring a graphic designer may be necessary. Many graphic artists specialize in crafting Instagram Highlight Covers tailored specifically for your brand.
Best Practices For Instagram Highlight Covers
Consider these best practices when creating Instagram Highlights Covers that stand out:
- Minimalism Is Key: To ensure clarity and readability, simple icons or text work best to achieve maximum readability and comprehension.
- Use Brand Colors: Leverage Brand Colors to Align With Brand Identity
- Ensure High Resolution: Provide 1080 x 1920 resolution covers to keep things crisp for all devices.
- Be Consistent: Keep all covers uniform by employing icons, text, or images with similar themes.
Learn How To Add Instagram Highlight Covers Now
Once your Instagram Highlights Cover has been designed, follow these steps to upload it:
Launch Instagram and navigate to your profile page. Depending on which highlight or cover photo you want to edit, tap and hold to access editing features before selecting “edit cover image from the camera roll.”
Adjust positioning as necessary before tapping “Done.” By following these steps, you can customize an Instagram Highlights Cover without uploading an image directly to your story.
Instagram Highlight Cover Ideas
Do You Need Ideas for an Instagram Highlight Cover? Here Are A Few:
- Icons: Use simple icons to represent each highlight category (e.g., shopping cart for stores or camera for photography).
- Brand Logos: Businesses should consider adding brand logos as another way of reinforcing branding.
- Typography: Words such as “SALE,” “TIPS,” or “NEW” can quickly attract attention.
- Attractive Backgrounds: Subtle gradients or marble textures add elegance.
Instagram Highlights In Marketing
Instagram Highlight Covers provide businesses with an opportunity to expand their branding and customer engagement strategies. From influencers to e-commerce stores to service providers to others, highlights offer businesses the perfect way to promote key content without overcrowding the main feed.
E-commerce stores create highlights to highlight product releases, FAQs, customer reviews, and promotions, while influencers use highlights to share collaborations, travel diaries, or special moments with followers.
Conclusion
An appealing Instagram highlight cover can leave an indelible mark on visitors to your profile. From icons and colors to brand elements, creating engaging highlight covers helps boost profile appeal while organizing content efficiently and strengthening connections to audiences.