Make sure you are clicked on the second layer! As you begin designing, don’t be afraid to color outside of the lines.

Design! Begin designing by dragging shape elements, adding text, and using the pen tool.

Lock the circles and call this one “guides.” We will be using this space to know where to create our highlight covers. Then, go to your Layer panel and create a new layer on top of the circles. Holding down “shift” on the keyboard, draw outward until the circle fills the whole frame.

Create circular “guides.” Use the circle tool in the toolbar and start in the corner of one of your arboards.

For this example, I’ll pretend I have six. Make as many artboards as you have Instagram highlights. They can be any size, but the 400 x 400 pt default will work.

Create an Illustrator document with multiple square artboards.

A final idea is to use pieces of the same pattern, which gives your page a cohesive and well-designed feel.

To do something like this, you can search images on Pinterest or Google and drop into Illustrator-or upload directly to Instagram, if you don’t want to edit them at all. Others prefer using textures that fit under a particular color scheme, like these gold accents. You can also create a swatch of colors in Illustrator. One easy way to do this is to pull colors from images you find online using the eyedropper tool. The most common style of Instagram highlight covers are small icons that explain the category of the story highlights within.įor a more minimal look, some people enjoy doing shades of colors, often pastels, that create a nice palette.

Brainstorm a creative idea for your highlight covers.

Instagram highlights icons viewer