Digital Promotion- Instagram

After having Blogger for a while i decided that i would use that for college work mainly, last year i used to post a lot of my sketches on there and i feel like it just clogged up the blog. I also liked the idea of keeping updated on the go and felt like a blog which allows me to photograph my work as and when i liked would be great. This is why i signed up to an Instagram, the app almost exclusively works within a mobile phone making it the ultimate travel blog. Instagram is also great because i can add hash tags which increase the chance of my work being seen by other people around the world. There arent many customization options but i like the layout that is provided anyway, above is an image of my Instagram homepage, it features a profile picture and a little details section which tells everyone what the page will be used for. To the right there are boxes that show how many people are following me, how many people i am following and how many posts i have made. The view above is different from the regular view as this was loaded within a web browser, the phone version is a lot more contained. The larger header at the top contains a random slideshow of all of my work that has been posted, it also transitions randomly and the squares change size, i think the site flows really nicely.

When you scroll down the page you can see all of my work which is then tiled to normally fit 4-5 squares per line depending on your screen size. As you hover your mouse over the images they magnify slightly and show the date that it was published. Below the image there are two small icons, a heart; depicting how many users have liked the image; and a speech bubble which shows how many comments are on that image.

Above is a screen shot taken from my girlfriends computer, I only did this to show my page from another users perspective. Clicking on the image enlarges it and opens up a generic comment and like interface, Above in the right hand corner there is also a green 'Following' button which just shows the user that she is already following me, if a user was not then a gray 'Follow' button would be there instead. Finally you can see all of the tags which i had used for this particular post and the comments below.

Instagram works for me as portfolio site because it shows a lot of my finished products and imagery though there are some developmental sketches on there also. I use this app a lot because it is incredibly easy to use and i also seem to have a lot of followers that are from all over the world meaning that the use of tags is very appropriate. Users can filter search using tags as keywords meaning the more tags that i use the more likley someone is to find my work. Finally i like using this app because if is mobile, i can take out my phone and show people my work wherever i am which is incredibly handy.