Instagram released a big “brand refresh” today, which is mostly a luxury term for refreshing some marketing materials and making big wavy logo statements. And there are many here too. (Can I interest you in a long digression about highlighted gradients?) But there is a much bigger change: Instagram has created its own font called Instagram Sans, which it plans to use extensively in the future, both in marketing and in the app itself. .
Instagram Sans is inspired by the Instagram logo, the company says, and “reflects the shape of the glyph and our commitment to simplicity and craftsmanship.” (As I said, hand wavy.) It’s largely inspired by the combination of squares and circles, or as Instagram affectionately calls them, squircles. And as Instagram has always tried to do, it’s a mix of perfectly pixel and handmade with a few details, such as the not-quite-straight terminal at the bottom of the “t” that makes it look more human. In some places, you can see the evolution of the italic Instagram logo used for years.
Some Instagram Sans look normal – others don’t. Image: Instagram
Most of the fonts on Instagram Sans are quite clear without serif letters, which makes sense for a brand with such a global and diverse set of users. Instagram said it is working with linguists to ensure that the font works in as many languages as possible, including scripting languages such as Thai and Japanese. In some fonts, only a small hump in the tail of the capital letter “Q” indicates that this is an unusual font. But there is also Instagram Sans Script, which adds a wide bar-y to almost every letter, sometimes for a cooling effect (the main “W” looks like the logo of a super hip yoga studio) and sometimes for deeply strange results “small” r “doesn’t even look like per letter).
What the weirder fonts give Instagram, however, is a much more distinctive identity. One place the company hopes users will try out Instagram Sans is in Stories and Reels, where a caption written in Sans Script won’t look like a TikTok video. As vertical video becomes the norm, there is a certain uniformity that permeates the social landscape, and while the unnecessarily wavy “x” may not change everything, it’s something.
The real question, however, is how consumers will feel about the new look. Meta knows better than anyone how resilient users of change can be; Remember all the “10,000 against the new Facebook!” groups? This may be the reason why Instagram started a little, and not completely reviewed everything about the app on the first day. But don’t be surprised if you see the squeak start appearing in more places before you know it.
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