Social media trends keep shifting, but one thing remains constant, how your profile looks does matter. Instagram isn’t just for sharing snapshots anymore; it’s become a major platform for building a brand, whether you’re a creator, influencer, or business owner. One small yet impactful detail that helps make your profile look polished and professional is the use of Instagram highlight covers.

In 2025, these little icons do more than just look pretty, they act as visual doorways into your brand’s story and personality.

In this blog, we’ll show you exactly how to create eye-catching Insta highlight covers, covering everything from dimensions and design tools to editing tricks and layout ideas.

Let’s dive in.

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What Are Highlight Covers For Instagram?

Insta highlight covers are the small, circular icons that appear at the top of your profile, acting as visual labels for your saved Story collections. These covers help organize your content into categories, like Travel, Food, or Tutorials, making it easier for followers to explore your profile.

Instead of leaving them as default thumbnails, customizing these covers adds a polished, branded look to your page.

Beyond just aesthetics, Instagram highlight covers play a key role in profile appeal. A well-designed set creates consistency, reinforces your style, and makes your content more inviting. 

Whether you choose minimalist designs, bold colors, or themed illustrations, they help your profile stand out. By keeping them cohesive, you not only improve navigation but also leave a lasting impression on visitors, encouraging them to engage with your highlights.

Why Do Instagram Highlights Matter?

A well-designed set of Insta highlight covers instantly elevates your profile’s visual appeal, creating a strong first impression for visitors. These small but impactful graphics reinforce your brand identity through consistent colors, fonts, and design elements, making your page look polished and professional. 

Unlike generic icons, custom highlight covers act as eye-catching signposts that guide followers to your best content, whether it’s tutorials, travel diaries, or promotions. Think of them as a mini portfolio; each cover should represent its category while maintaining a unified aesthetic. 

A cohesive set not only improves navigation but also builds trust and credibility, showing that you pay attention to details. In a crowded platform, standout highlight covers can be the difference between a visitor scrolling past or stopping to engage with your content. Ultimately, they’re a simple yet powerful tool to boost discoverability and keep your audience exploring longer.

What Are The Ideal Dimensions And Size For Instagram Highlight Covers?

Creating professional-looking Insta highlight covers starts with using the right dimensions. Here’s everything you need to know for 2025:

Optimal Dimensions:

The ideal size is 1080 x 1920 pixels (9:16 ratio), matching Instagram’s recommended Story format. This ensures your covers appear crisp on all devices.

Safe Zone for Design:

While the upload is rectangular, Instagram crops it into a circle. Keep all critical text, logos, and graphics within the central 1080 x 1080 pixels to avoid awkward cropping.

Technical Specifications:

• File formats: PNG (transparent background) or JPG (compressed)
• Color profile: RGB for digital display
• Maximum file size: 30MB
• Resolution: 72-150 PPI (optimal for mobile viewing)

 Platform-Specific Notes

• Instagram automatically converts uploads to circles (1.9:1 ratio)
• The system applies a slight automatic zoom (about 5%)
• Mobile preview may show slight variations from desktop

For best results, test your covers on multiple devices before finalizing. The right dimensions ensure your branding remains intact across all viewing platforms.

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How To Make Instagram Highlight Covers?

If you’re wondering how to make Insta highlight covers, the good news is you don’t need to be a professional designer. With the right approach and tools, anyone can create visually stunning covers that reflect their brand personality and attract followers.

To begin, it’s important to gather visual inspiration that aligns with your niche. This is where PowerAdSpy, a leading Instagram ads spy tool, becomes extremely valuable. As a powerful ad intelligence platform, it allows you to explore top-performing Instagram creatives from around the world. By studying successful visuals in your industry, you can identify trending color palettes, icon styles, and design elements to guide your highlight cover strategy.. 

By analyzing these successful ads, especially in your industry, you can identify what kind of color palettes, icon styles, imagery, and design elements are currently resonating with audiences. Use these insights as the foundation for your cover design strategy.

Define Your Brand Aesthetic:

Choose a consistent style that represents your brand identity, whether it’s minimalistic, vibrant, pastel, or bold. Your aesthetic should align with your overall Instagram feed and resonate with your target audience. Using cohesive design elements like matching icons, color schemes, and typography will help reinforce your visual identity and create a more professional-looking profile.

Set the Right Dimensions:

Create your design on a canvas with dimensions of 1080 x 1920 pixels, which follows the 9:16 aspect ratio. Although this is the full size of an Instagram Story, keep all important design elements, such as icons, text, or imagery, within the central 1080 x 1080 pixels. This ensures that the key parts of your design are visible when Instagram crops it into a circle for your highlight cover.

Select a Background:

Choose a background that enhances both readability and visual appeal. Solid colors, soft gradients, or subtle patterns can work beautifully, as long as they aren’t too distracting. The background should complement your profile’s theme and help your icons or text stand out without clashing with the overall aesthetic.

Add Centered Icons or Labels:

To make your covers easy to understand and visually pleasing, place minimalist icons or short words, like Tips, Travel, or Skincare, in the exact center of the design. Centering is essential because Instagram automatically crops the image into a circular frame. A centered design ensures that nothing important gets cut off.

Maintain Design Consistency:

Use the same layout, icon style, and color scheme across all your highlight covers. This consistency ties all your story highlights together visually, making your profile appear more organized, cohesive, and professional. It also helps followers quickly recognize different content categories at a glance.

Save in High-Quality Format:

Once your design is complete, export it in PNG format to maintain sharpness and clarity. Ensure the file size stays under 30MB to meet Instagram’s upload requirements and prevent any compression issues that might reduce image quality.

Upload and Set as Highlight Cover:

To apply your new design, go to your Instagram profile and tap on the highlight you want to update. Select Edit Highlight, then tap Edit Cover, and upload your new image. Use the zoom and positioning tools to properly align the image within the circular frame. Once it looks perfect, tap “Done” to save your changes.

By following this structured approach, you can create Instagram highlight covers that not only enhance the visual appeal of your profile but also make your content more organized and accessible. 

6 Best Design Tips For Instagram Highlight Covers

Now that you know how to create them, let’s talk about how to make your Insta highlight covers stunning. These tips will help you stand out in 2025:

1. Keep it Consistent:

Maintaining consistency in your highlight covers helps build a cohesive and polished Instagram profile. Use the same color palette, icon style, and design layout across all your covers. This creates visual harmony and strengthens your brand identity.

2. Use Brand Colors:

Sticking to your brand’s official color scheme boosts recognition and professionalism. Whether it’s Instagram highlight covers pink or any other shade, the key is alignment with your overall aesthetic. This ensures your highlights blend seamlessly into your feed.

3. Center Your Icons:

Always place your icons in the exact center of the design canvas to keep them within Instagram’s circular crop zone. Proper centering prevents awkward cut-offs and maintains visual balance. This step is crucial for a clean and professional look.

4. Go Minimal:

Minimalist designs are easier to process at a glance and often more aesthetically pleasing. Avoid cluttered visuals and stick with clean, simple icons that convey your message. A streamlined design ensures your covers stay stylish and impactful.

5. Stick with Icons:

Icons are a universal visual language that instantly communicates the theme of your highlight. Choose simple, relevant graphics, like a suitcase for Travel or a heart for Wellness. They help your audience understand your content categories quickly.

6. Use High-Quality Images:

Low-resolution graphics can make your profile look unprofessional and messy. Always use high-resolution images or vector files to ensure your highlight covers appear crisp and clear. Quality visuals reflect positively on your brand and credibility.

These tips ensure your Insta highlight covers not only look beautiful but also serve a strategic purpose.

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How To Edit Instagram Highlight Covers

You’ve designed your highlight covers, but what if you want to update or change them?

Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to your Instagram profile.
2. Tap on the Highlight you want to edit.
3. Tap the three dots at the bottom right.
4. Choose “Edit Highlight.”
5. Tap “Edit Cover” and select your new image
6. Zoom in/out to center the design.
7. Tap “Done.”

Whether you’re refreshing your style or just correcting alignment, updating your Instagram highlight covers is a simple task that can have a big impact.

Best Instagram Highlight Icons & Covers

To save time and maintain a cohesive aesthetic, many creators and brands choose to use pre-designed Insta highlight covers. These ready-made options offer a quick and effective way to enhance your profile while ensuring visual consistency across all highlights.

You can find a wide variety of icon sets and cover designs available in different styles, ranging from minimalist and modern to vibrant and thematic. Whether you’re curating a soft aesthetic or something more striking, there’s something for every niche and brand voice.

For those who prefer bold and elegant visuals, you can even find black Instagram highlight covers for free, which are perfect for creating a sleek, professional look. These are especially popular among fashion influencers, entrepreneurs, and anyone aiming for a more high-contrast and polished feed.

Some of the trending design styles for 2025 include:

• Neon and holographic accents

• Minimalist monochrome icons

• Pastel gradient backgrounds

• Nature and travel-inspired graphics
• Entrepreneurial or business-focused visuals

Whether you want aesthetic Insta highlight covers or something more bold and graphic, choosing visuals that align with your story categories and brand identity will make your profile visually appealing and professionally branded.

What Are The Best Practices For Instagram Story Highlights?

Using Instagram highlight covers effectively goes beyond just choosing a good-looking icon. It’s about strategy, consistency, and aligning with what your audience responds to most.

Here are some professional tips to help you optimize your story highlights in 2025:

1. Name Highlights Clearly:

Keep labels short and direct. Use one or two words that clearly describe the content inside, like Tips, FAQs, Events, or Reviews. Simplicity enhances readability and makes navigation easier for your visitors.

2. Organize Highlights Strategically:

Position your most important or recent content first. If you’re promoting a launch, campaign, or special feature, place that highlight in the first slot to draw attention immediately.

3. Update Regularly:

Outdated content can give the impression that your profile isn’t active. Make a habit of reviewing and refreshing your highlights with current and relevant Stories that reflect what’s happening in your brand now.

4. Promote in Stories:

Whenever you add a new Story Highlight or update an existing one, let your followers know! Use interactive features like polls or stickers in your Stories to encourage engagement and direct viewers to the updated highlights.

5. Use Analytics to Guide Your Design:

Monitor what your audience clicks on and engages with. This is where a social ad intelligence tool like PowerAdSpy becomes incredibly valuable.

PowerAdSpy gives you real-time access to high-performing Instagram ads, allowing you to study what’s capturing attention in your niche. By analyzing the design trends, messaging strategies, and engagement patterns of top ads, you can translate those insights directly into your Instagram highlight covers. This ensures that your visuals not only look good but also follow data-driven best practices to increase user interaction.

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How PowerAdSpy Helps You Design Better Instagram Highlight Covers?

Creating visually compelling Insta highlight covers isn’t just about design,  it’s about understanding what attracts attention. That’s where PowerAdSpy becomes a game-changer. It’s the most powerful Social Ads advertising analytics tool available in 2025.

 Here’s how it can help:

Discover Winning Visual Trends:

With millions of ads from over 100+ countries, PowerAdSpy lets you analyze the most engaging social ad creatives. Whether it’s aesthetic Instagram highlight covers or black Instagram highlight covers free, you’ll get visual inspiration based on real ad performance, so your designs don’t just look good, they work.

Narrow Down by Niche and Competitor:

PowerAdSpy allows you to search ads by niche, advertiser, or domain, helping you understand how top brands present their content. This makes it easier to select icon styles, color palettes, and visual strategies for your highlight covers.

 Engagement-Based Optimization:

The tool shows real-time engagement metrics, likes, shares, and comments, which means you can pinpoint what visuals resonate with your audience. Apply these findings directly to your cover designs to maximize attention and clicks.

GEO-targeting for Hyper-Relevant Design:

Running a local campaign? PowerAdSpy’s GEO-targeted ad insights show you which visual elements work best in specific locations, allowing you to tailor your Instagram highlight covers to audience preferences in different regions.

Bookmark Inspiration Instantly:

As you scroll through competitor ads or successful visuals, bookmark the ones that resonate with your brand. Use these as templates or inspiration when creating your highlight covers, making the design process faster and smarter.

With PowerAdSpy, you’re not just designing highlight covers, you’re crafting data-driven visuals that are proven to perform. Make smarter, creative decisions and stay ahead of the Instagram trends with every scroll.

Final Thoughts

Your Instagram profile deserves more than default visuals; highlight covers give it life and personality. In 2025, it’s not just about looking good; it’s about being intentional with every design.

From choosing the right icons to analyzing what performs well using PowerAdSpy, there’s real strategy behind standout covers. By keeping your style consistent, staying aligned with your brand, and applying what works, your highlights will truly work for you. 

Whether you’re running a business or growing a personal brand, great highlight covers help you connect faster, look more professional, and keep people coming back to explore more.

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FAQs

1. Can I create Instagram highlight covers directly within the Instagram app?

Ans. No, Instagram doesn’t let you design custom highlight covers within the app. You can only pick a frame from a story or upload an image. Custom designs must be created using external design tools.

2. Do Insta highlight covers affect reach or engagement?

Ans. You should update your highlight covers every few months or during major changes like a rebrand or campaign launch. This keeps your profile fresh and aligned with current trends. Regular updates also show activity and boost audience engagement.

3. How often should I update or redesign my Instagram highlight covers?

Ans. Update your highlight covers every few months or during key changes like a brand refresh or campaign launch. This keeps your profile visually current and aligned with trends. Regular updates also show activity, building credibility, and engagement.