Designing for 3 billion: how Instagram built a brand system that celebrates everyone’s point of view

There’s a familiar ritual whenever a major brand unveils a change: the raised eyebrows, the “why?”, the inevitable “I could have done that.” But as Jasmine Probst, director of product design, and May Hartono, director of brand design, share, a project like the Instagram refresh is really a series of tiny, meticulous decisions that add up to a seamless whole. Tasked with a hefty design brief and alchemising an entire brand identity system, they’ve delivered something built to last a decade and evolve well beyond it.

What comes through in our conversation is a sense of responsibility and excitement in equal measure. “There’s something deeply motivating,” as May puts it, “about knowing that the decisions you’re sweating over will become part of so many people’s daily lives and culture at large.”

Collaboration on this scale – with numerous internal and external contributors – is grounded in pragmatism, discipline and communication. When different viewpoints surfaced, the team leaned in with curiosity rather than resistance.

For a brand that is about people, it’s no surprise that Jasmine and May reflect on the work with a level-headed clarity, deep knowledge, and a genuine understanding of the people who use Instagram. Because they know that the moment it goes live, everyone – and everyone’s friends, family and colleagues – will have something to say. “The scale inspires a real sense of responsibility,” says Jasmine, “because we want to make sure we’re creating something that’s meaningful and appropriate for the world, not just interesting to us. But the scale also inspired a real sense of possibility.”

Here, Jasmine and May tell us how a project of this magnitude comes together, from the first brief to the day it meets the world.

INT: Please could you walk us through asset management on a project like this? How do you keep a dynamic library – from the master wordmark to expansive type families – organised across teams without version control getting messy or descending into chaos?

JP: I don’t think you can avoid some messiness in a project of this scope – but messiness doesn’t have to mean chaos. You hold the right degree of tolerance for ambiguity and then lean hard into communication. We’re really intentional about orienting each other: What are we looking at today? What did the latest version evolve from? Where is this direction moving us now?

MH: At this scale, asset management is an operations challenge as much as a creative one, and our team is as pragmatic as it is creative. That means we can stay focused on the work without drowning in files. It all comes down to communication: no egos, but real discipline about staying aligned.

INT: The core wordmark is built to last a decade, whereas the identity system needs to flex and evolve continuously. How did designing across two very different timescales change your process for each?

JP: For the wordmark, we knew we needed something that exudes a quiet confidence. Bold, distinctive, with just the right amount of individuality, because that’s so core to what Instagram represents. We kept returning to what’s always been special about the brand: personal expression, and the expressiveness that script signals. The new wordmark modernises, simplifies, and elevates, while maintaining that emotional connection.

MH: For the broader system, we gave ourselves intentional breathing room to continue adapting. We had a lot of conversation about which elements needed to endure and which were open for reinvention. The result is a system that creates continuity with where we’ve come from, while leaving space to grow into where we’re going.

INT: With that global perspective in mind, how does regional and cultural context enter the process? Is high-level design direction set centrally and then localised, or do regional hubs feed into core decisions from the start – and how do you make sure the system reads authentically for creator communities across different regions?

JP: We have a bi-directional approach. We have a central point of view on our brand identity and values, and we work to understand regionally what considerations we need to bake in from the start. Then, as we developed design directions, we continued the back-and-forth, seeking feedback to ensure we weren’t moving in a direction that only resonates in one corner of the world.

INT: When designing at this level, everyone has an opinion. During development (pre-rollout), how do you filter out subjective personal taste to focus on feedback that uncovers a genuine design flaw?

JP: Two phrases we come back to a lot: ‘Strong opinions, loosely held’ and ‘Hard on the work, soft on the people.’ The biggest signal for us is pattern recognition. A genuine design flaw tends to nag; it doesn’t go away after one conversation. If we can’t all understand or align on why something is the way it is, it’s a pretty good signal we haven’t nailed it yet.

MH: We’re intentional about pacing, too. Creating space for disagreement, knowing when people need time to digest and when it’s time to lock in and move on. When everybody on the team knows that we’re all here to create the same thing, that makes it actually quite easy then to put your own subjective perspective to rest.

INT: You’ve noted that discourse around a rebrand this familiar is inevitable. What’s your philosophy for engaging with that public reaction once it’s out in the world, rather than trying to shield against it?

JP: Our philosophy is to listen. Instagram is fundamentally about creativity, connection, people expressing themselves, exploring interests, and that extends to how people respond to us. We’re honestly interested in what people think. We’ll embrace the praise, and we’ll pay attention to the critique. We put an enormous amount of rigour into our work precisely because we know it’ll be met with strong reactions.

MH: I think we know that rebrands can be challenging for people to accept. We want brand love. But we have to keep earning it again and again. A new identity needs to live in the world for a while before people feel it as theirs. That’s okay. We’re patient with it.