How To Create an Instagram Carousel in Illustrator

Wonder how you can create an eye-catching Instagram carousel? Adobe Illustrator has all the tools needed to level up your digital designs.

In this article, we will show you how to create eye-catching Instagram carousels using Adobe Illustrator with a template you can download for yourself at the bottom.

Before we begin, users should know that the standard dimensions for Instagram carousels are 1080 x 1080.

Should you wish to watch our YouTube tutorial on how to create your own Instagram Carousel, a video is provided down below:

If you would like to download the design created for this article, you can download it at the end of this article or click here.

Step 1 – Create a New Document

Open up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document with 1080px x 1080px (with pixels selected) dimensions to serve as the base for your Instagram Carousel. As a standard, select 4 artboards for your carousel so you can work on each board.

Step 2 - Rearranging Your Artboards

Once you have your artboards created, you would have noticed that the setup is completely off, which leaves you to use the 'rearrange all artboards' feature in Adobe Illustrator to align them correctly.

To do this, click on the extended menu, which can be found by clicking the menu near the artboards themselves. A small window should open up with a few selections for you to take advantage of. From the layout section, select 'arrange by row', set 'spacing' to 0px and click 'ok'.

After completing this section, your artboards should be aligned to the image seen below:

Step 3 - Adding a Background

Now that we have our artboards arranged, it's time to add a background. You can either use a solid colour or any other image you want as the backdrop for your Instagram carousel.

For this project, we will use a white background which needs to match the full dimensions of all the artboards, which will be 4320px by 1080px. Do this by creating a rectangle and stretching it to fill the entire artboard.

Step 4 - Adding Content

Now we've got our background, it's time to start adding content to each of your artboards. You can add whatever you like, either images or text or both, making sure that none of the content extends beyond the boundaries of one board into another.

Feel free to add content that overlaps into each individual artboard, as well. This will bring a little bit of creativity to the overall design, making it look unique and eye-catching.

Step 5 - Preview and Export

The last step is to preview your carousel before you export it into a single image that can be uploaded to Instagram. Make sure everything looks just the way you want it before you click 'export'.

When exporting, click on file> export> export as and from there you should be able to choose the 'jpg' option. From the window, select 'use artboards', select 'range' and 1-4 in this particular case, and click 'export'.

And that's it! You now know how to create an Instagram carousel using Adobe Illustrator to help enhance all your Instagram posts. Go ahead and give it a try - you won't be disappointed!

Tips on how To create an Instagram Carousel in Illustrator

• Keep your content consistent: Make sure all of your artboards share a common theme and look great when combined into one carousel.

• Don’t overcrowd: Make sure to leave enough white space between visual elements and text so that your design is easily readable.

• Utilize transitions: Include subtle animations or transitions between artboards to help unify the carousel as a whole, rather than multiple unrelated images.

• Play with fonts: Choosing a unique font family can help you create an Instagram carousel that looks professional and on-brand.

• Review some of the latest information from Instagram regarding how they rank reels and posts here

Adding your design to Instagram

Once you have exported your design, you can now easily upload it to Instagram.

Simply go to your profile, choose 'add post' and select the file you just exported.

Make sure to include a captivating caption, and you are ready to go! Your Instagram carousel is ready for the world to see.

Add alt text to your carousel post to make it more accessible for users with visual impairments. This will also help boost the visibility of your post in search engine results.

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Like the design we created? Click below to download the Ai design below or speak to our team to help with your graphic design:

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