In what could be the biggest upheaval since its inception nearly five years ago, the photo sharing giant Instagram finally has announced support for images in formats other than square.
One of the most distinctive design elements of the service has been the resemblance of individual posts to the square photos produced by vintage instant cameras. Instagram’s logo borrows many design cues from Polaroid’s SX-70 OneStep land camera - a favour later returned by Polaroid with the release of its square Socialmatic, a device which comes pretty close to an Instagram logo turned into a physical camera.
Taking to the company blog, Instagram has today announced that, “In addition to square posts - you can now share photos and videos in both portrait and landscape orientation”. Although square format is still very much seen as part of the Instagram brand, the company has been forced to acknowledge that almost one in five posts are rectangular, with several determined users resorting external formating and third-party apps in order to post in horizontal or vertical orientations.
Importantly, this latest move from Instagram also applies to video which, unlike still photography, has no nostalgia-inducing historical square format to hark back to. The latest version of the Instagram app also now enables the use of all available filters with video posts, rather than a separate selection for moving images. Video filters also now come with variable intensity.
From version 7.5 of the app, when a user posts a photo or video, they can tap a new format button to select from portrait, landscape or square formats to change how they will appear in their feed. Rectangular posts will be cropped to original square format in profile grids, but expand to full-size when viewed.
For more information on how to use the new features, visit the Instagram Help Center. Instagram has also released a short video demonstrating the new features. Stepping away from the square format finally brings Instagram into line with its parent company,
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