It seems like every day, there’s a new social platform promising to take over the digital landscape—Peach, we’re looking at you—which makes the apps we’ve being using for longer than 5 seconds feel especially familiar. Cozy, even…Plus, the longer one has been around, the more innovative its users can get, even despite what may seem like constrictive platform standards. Proof? These five creatives thinking outside the Instagram box. They’re challenging the single square standard by using their imaginations to ignore the rules or maximize the charm of three-in-a-row style.
Lexie Roth is one of those professional multihyphenates (chef, artist, songwriter) with a “no boundaries” approach to her interests, and her feed is the same way: she tiles her photos into beautiful horizontal banners. Making her photos feel larger than life. (The free app Tile Pic makes it easy to try yourself.)
The Chinatown, New York-based artist has developed a massive fanbase for his collages that superimpose celebrities or fashion figures into unlikely everyday spaces. He’s called his work “sexy and unsettling” and his account has been duly shut down more than once. Clients like Vogue and The Weeknd aren’t concerned, however.
Ng Weijing is a creative force out of Singapore who sequences his high-contrast photos so seamlessly, creating beautifully vast images that can last for several scrolls. And you thought your brunch photo took a long time to filter…
Our brains are hardwired to love the order and consistency, which makes this one-subject feed pleasing to look at: headshots of straphangers and their books. Even better, those pictured talk about what they’re reading and why. It captures a beautiful and peaceful moment of a day’s commute, which can otherwise be stressful for many urbanites.
Victoria Siemer’s feed is both beautiful as a whole or as bite-sized images viewed one at a time. She manipulates familiar landscapes into ethereal dystopian conditions, or she’ll layer a pointed “error message” pop up over a vaguely depressing photo. All the feels.