Filtered square photos have been a trademark of the photo-sharing site Instagram since it debuted in 2010.
Not anymore.
Instagram said Thursday that it would allow users to post their photos in a portrait or landscape format.
Square format has been and always will be part of who we are. That said, the visual story you re trying to tell should always come first, and we want to make it simple and fun for you to share moments just the way you want to, Facebook-owned Instagram announced today in a blog post.
Apparently not all of the site s 300 million users were a fan of square photos and added borders to make photos fit. Nearly 1 in 5 photos or videos that people post aren t square, according to Instagram.
I m conflicted! Should I change my Instagram layout to square? Like all the cool kids? Or continue my life as a rectangle? â-«ï¸â—»ï¸â-ªï¸â—¼ï¸
— Daniel Christopher (@MisterPreda)
So why did Instagram only allow square photos in the first place?
It turns out it was an intentional design decision, Instagram founder and CEO Kevin Systrom told Business Insider in a Q&A in 2012.
We realized that if we were going to do photos, that we d have to be different and stand out. Square photos displayed really well in a feed format and frankly we just liked the aspect ratio better. It wasn t more complex than that, he said in the Q&A.
Photo Credit: Instagram.
