The making of Threads

In a recent article published on creative platform It’s Nice That, Liz Gorny explores the design work and thinking that led to the branding of Threads. They talk to Instagram’s director of brand design, Cynthia Pratomo, to learn more about what went on behind the scenes.

“There was a lot of excitement from the start about the black and white direction,” says Cynthia. But even this decision was the result of weeks of development and discussion. The app saw untapped potential in the confidence black and white suggested. While Instagram’s colourful gradient had represented the colour spectrum of photography, black and white could be used to represent text.

Other concepts that weren’t used in the end included an ‘illustrated notepad in the style of the Instagram camera lens’, as well as an @ symbol ‘housed in the Instagram ‘squircle’ container’.

As Gorny writes: ‘[T]he Threads identity presents a major case study for how a brand like Instagram can make a new name for itself.’