People judge a business by its feed in a few seconds. A messy, inconsistent one suggests a messy business, even when the work is excellent. The good news: a professional-looking feed has far more to do with consistency than with talent. These ten rules will get you most of the way.

1. Pick two or three brand colors and stop there

Choose one main color, one accent and one neutral (white, off-white or a dark gray). Write down their exact codes and use only those. A feed in the same three colors looks deliberate; a feed in whatever color felt right that day looks random.

If you already have a logo, take your main color from it.

2. Use two fonts at most

One font for headlines, one for everything else. Or one font in two weights (bold for headlines, regular for the rest), which is even simpler. Skip script and novelty fonts for anything people need to read. They’re hard to read small, and on a phone, everything is small.

3. Make the text big

The most common mistake in DIY posts is text that’s too small. Your post will mostly be seen at around a third of the size you designed it. A practical rule: if you can’t read the text when you shrink the image down to the size of a thumbnail, it’s too small. Headlines should fill a good part of the width.

4. Say less on the image

The image holds the headline; the caption holds the explanation. Aim for under 15 words on the image itself. If you need more, it’s a carousel or a caption, not a single graphic.

5. Check the contrast

Light gray text on a white background, or dark blue on black, looks fine on your monitor and vanishes on a phone in sunlight. Keep text dark on light or light on dark, with a clear difference. Web accessibility guidelines suggest a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text, and free online contrast checkers will tell you in seconds whether your colors pass.

When text sits on a photo, put a solid or semi-transparent block behind it, or place it over a calm, plain part of the image.

6. Leave space around the edges

Crowded posts look cheap. Keep a generous margin, roughly 5% of the width or more, between text and the edges of the image. Apps also crop posts in different places (profile grids, previews, stories), so anything important near the edge risks being cut off.

7. Use the right size

For Instagram and Facebook feeds, a 4:5 portrait image (1080 × 1350 pixels) takes up the most screen space. For stories and reels covers, use 9:16 (1080 × 1920). LinkedIn handles square and portrait images well. Designing at the right size from the start avoids awkward crops later.

8. Choose photos carefully

Your own photos almost always beat stock: your team, your office, your work, your product in use. They don’t need to be perfect. Natural light, a steady hand and a clean background go a long way.

When you do use stock photos:

  • Pick ones that look like real life, not posed handshakes in empty boardrooms.
  • Keep a consistent style: similar light, similar color tone.
  • Never put a stock photo next to a real customer’s review as if it were them.
  • Check the license. Free photo sites have their own terms, usually including credit to the photographer.

9. Build templates once, then reuse them

Make a small set of templates for the posts you make most often:

  • A tip or fact post
  • A review or quote post
  • An announcement or offer post
  • A photo post with a short headline

Free design tools let you save these and swap in new words each time. Templates are what make a feed look consistent week after week, and they cut design time from an hour to a few minutes per post.

10. Put your logo in the same place every time

A small logo in the same corner on every post does more for recognition than a big logo in a different spot each time. Use the version that stands out on the background: a light logo on dark designs, a dark one on light designs. And keep it small; the post is the message, the logo is the signature.

A quick checklist before you post

Run through this in thirty seconds before publishing:

  • Only brand colors and fonts?
  • Text readable at thumbnail size?
  • Fewer than 15 words on the image?
  • Enough contrast?
  • Nothing important near the edges?
  • Correct size for the platform?
  • Logo in its usual place?
  • Every word spelled right, every date and price correct?

Why consistency wins

Nobody will remember one beautiful post. They will remember that every time they see your posts, they recognize them before reading a word. That recognition is what builds familiarity, and familiarity is what makes people pick your name when they need what you do.

If you’d rather not think about any of this, Schedult designs every post in your own colors, fonts and logo, and checks each design for readability before it goes out.