Instagram Slideshow Activism and Internet Ugly: a style combination

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What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics) Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular

Type from Internet Ugly: All caps
Condensed display
Colour from Instagram Slideshow Activism: Pastel
Flat fields
Form from Internet Ugly: Stylised figuration
Distortion & exaggeration
Composition from Instagram Slideshow Activism: Sequential narrative
Full bleed
Surface from Internet Ugly: Glitch
Hard offset shadow

Instagram Slideshow Activism avoids glitch: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

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The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Internet Ugly

Fiesta

Anton, standing in for Impact (Geoffrey Lee, Stephenson Blake, 1965), set white with a black outline

Text · Instagram Slideshow Activism

The text-led explainer slideshows that filled Instagram after George Floyd's murder in May 2020. Up to ten square or 4:5 slides in one carousel (twenty since August 2024) are read like a PowerPoint deck: a title card in big type with a swipe arrow, then bullet-point slides with sources and a call to action. Pastel pink, yellow and blue grounds, large serif or bubbly, wide sans headings, gradients and playful flat figures, often from Canva templates, borrow the look of millennial brands to reach apolitical readers.

Inter; Instagram Slideshow Activism used Large display serifs on the title card and Ovo (Nicole Fally, Sorkin Type, 2011), a medium-contrast serif with soft serifs and old-style letter widths

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The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Instagram Slideshow Activism, with a counter-accent from Internet Ugly. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics) Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular

#fdf6ec ground · 36%
#1e1e1e ink · 14%
#c9962c accent · 18%
#00a2e8 accent · 14%
#b9d7ee accent · 10%
#ff7f27 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #fdf6ec;
  --ink: #1e1e1e;
  --accent-1: #c9962c;
  --accent-2: #00a2e8;
  --accent-3: #b9d7ee;
  --accent-4: #ff7f27;
  --font-display: "Anton", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics): The look grew out of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, and critics such as the sociologist Eve Ewing warned that slides flatten complex problems and summarise the work of often Black authors without credit: name and link every source, credit the people whose work you condense, and check claims before posting. Do not turn the names and faces of people killed by police into decorative or shareable motifs; Vox quotes a warning that the look can 'commodify tragedy and obfuscate revolutionary messages' and notes that Breonna Taylor's death 'devolved into a meme'. Do not dress brand marketing in the look to perform allyship without action, and remember that its friendly packaging works for any message, including an army's messaging in an armed conflict (the IDF slideshow of May 2021) and misinformation, which text inside images makes hard to moderate. Write the slide text into the caption or alt text so screen-reader users can follow it.

Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular: Most meme templates are photographs of real people, often children, or licensed stock. Success Kid is Laney Griner's son: the photo has been licensed to advertisers, and in January 2020 she sent a cease-and-desist letter to a congressman whose fundraising campaign used it without permission. Distracted Boyfriend is microstock, and its photographer says use without a proper licence is not allowed. License a template or make a new picture for commercial or political work. Check what a format means now: some characters that spread through 4chan were taken up as hate symbols (the ADL listed Pepe the Frog, Matt Furie's 2005 Boy's Club character, in 2016, while noting that most uses are not hateful). Reaction images of Black people posted by non-Black users and brands read as digital blackface (Lauren Michele Jackson, Teen Vogue, 2017), and deep-fried memes came out of Black Twitter, so credit where formats come from. When brands and campaigns borrow a format, its makers often protest or drop it (Douglas).

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