Instagram carousel cover: the first slide that earns the swipe

An Instagram carousel cover is the first slide of the post, and the only one that has to earn the swipe. Make it 1080×1350 pixels, with one specific promise in large type near the centre. The feed shows that whole frame, with dots underneath. Your profile shows only this slide, as a narrower 3:4 tile with a carousel icon in the top right. A vague line, or one sitting in the crop, means the later slides never get seen.

What an Instagram carousel cover has to do

Someone scrolling does not owe you a swipe. The dots are easy to miss, so the words have to say what they get if they stay. On the profile the tile is small and no later slide appears. Instagram's carousel help says the feed shows the first photo with dots below it, and the profile shows that same first photo.

The cover is a contract: a result, a problem, a count, or a place in a series. Later slides keep it. A logo on its own is not a contract. Followers may open from habit. Everyone else decides from this frame.

One job only. A question, a list and a part number on the same slide fight, and the type shrinks until none of them lands. The eyebrow names the audience. The detail holds the count. A second topic is a second post.

Cover lines that earn the swipe

Write the line before you open a canvas. If it needs a second sentence, that sentence is slide two. About six to ten words is a useful ceiling for the promise.

'Brief a client in one page' says a method is inside. 'Thoughts on pricing' could be anything, so there is nothing to swipe for. A question has to be just as specific.

All five items on the cover removes the reason to swipe, usually by shrinking the type. Give each item its own later slide. Tips carousels carry a list through the whole post. The cover only has to make that list feel worth opening.

The size of the cover, and the grid crop

Design the cover at 1080×1350 before any later slide exists. The first image sets the shape of the carousel. Square 1080×1080 is for artwork already square. Landscape 1080×566 is for a wide photo. Neither gives words enough room.

Instagram's resolution note keeps a photo at its uploaded width between 320 and 1080 pixels when the ratio is between 1.91:1 and 3:4. At 1080 wide, height runs from 566 to 1440. Wider files scale down to 1080. A ratio outside that range is cropped. 1080×1350 sits inside the range.

One orientation applies to every photo and video in the post. A square second slide behind a portrait cover gets cropped, often through the words at its edge. Instagram carousel size covers the rule in full.

The grid crops a 3:4 tile from the centre. A 1080×1350 cover loses about 34 pixels each side. The grid crop uses a safe area about 80 pixels in from each side and about 100 from the top and bottom. Keep every line inside it, and leave the top right clear for the carousel icon.

Shrink the cover to about a third of a phone's width. If the promise fails there, it fails on the profile. Then check the full 4:5. Let the side crop take background only.

How to lay out the first slide

Three levels, then stop. More than that and the cover turns into the contents page you were trying not to make.

• Eyebrow. Series name or audience, smaller than the promise.
• Promise. The line someone must read. Largest, in the centre.
• Detail. A count or a cue, still readable on a phone.

Visual hierarchy is why one dominant line beats three equal ones. Group the lines tightly, with more empty ground around them than between them. A promise around 80 to 110 pixels, and the other lines near 40, is a working range, not a platform rule. Cut words before you cut the size. Font size for social media goes further.

If the promise only fits by getting smaller, it has too many words.

Put the group on the calmest part of the ground. A line across a bright band and a dark band fails in one of them. Skip a filled box or a soft shadow behind the letters: both cover the ground you chose. Text on a gradient is the test. Judge the smallest line where the ground is lightest.

Build the cover as the first page

Same ground, same type, same place for the main line. Only the words change. If colour, type and layout all jump, slide two feels like a new post. A repeated ground is enough. A ground that continues through the join is stronger. One image across many slides is that method. Carousel design covers the slides after this one.

In Gradiently the cover is page one of a single design. Later slides are more pages on the same Mark, so the ground stays while the words change. Keep page order as swipe order. Carousel pages covers reordering and export.

1. 1

   Write the promise in one line

   Say what the swipe delivers, in about six to ten words. A second sentence is the next slide.

2. 2

   Lock every slide at 1080×1350

   Use that size for the cover and every later slide. The cover's orientation applies to the whole post.

3. 3

   Place three levels in the centre

   Eyebrow, promise, detail, with the promise largest. Stay about 80 pixels in from each side, clear of the top right.

4. 4

   Repeat the ground on slide two

   Same background, type and headline position. Change the words.

5. 5

   Read the tile, then the full frame

   The promise must still read at about a third of a phone's width, then again at full 4:5 with the cue hidden.

6. 6

   Export the cover first

   Upload in swipe order. The first file is the thumbnail, and it sets the crop.

A story is 1080×1920, a different shape, not a slide of this carousel. Do not crop the cover down to it. In Gradiently, copy to sizes lays the page out again and leaves the original alone. Every size at once is part of Pro. One new size is free. Copy to sizes is the routine.

Repeat the promise as the photo's alt text, in one plain sentence. Do not leave it only in the caption. Put the cover file first when you upload. A later slide at the front becomes the thumbnail by accident.