Food photos are highlights on Instagram, both as casual and promotional or business posts. While posting food photos sounds like an easy work, creating an eye-catching post can be challenging among the sea of similar works. If you want to promote a business or work, you highlight your photos using strategies to make them stand out.
Instagram food posts can appear in various forms; from regular photos to photos with texts. However, before tweaking your posts, make sure to understand the basic principles of making professional, mouthwatering food photos.
A study conducted by Annenberg School of Communication about the types of photos that make people want to share them. Turned out that photos adhering to the “rule of thirds” (a composition that places the main subject to the third right or left side of an image. The result is a composition that looks more natural and dynamic.
While it is not a strict guideline, the rule of thirds is a great, basic option to photograph food. You can showcase the food with interesting background or play with props to improve its look. For business purposes, you can have more space to place logos, brand taglines, or promotional texts.
Natural light is great for food photos, including for Instagram. It highlights the freshness and natural look of the food. Depending on where you photograph it, try finding a source of natural light and play with composition and location. If you are in a restaurant, find a spot near the window or outdoor table.
Related props can improve the visual of the food or make it more natural. You can place things like kitchen cloth, cutting board, knife, or cup next to food. This way, you can create a more “natural-looking” setting that is less artificial.
What if you want to pair your food with text in the image? Consider two important factors: the right Instagram font and the readability factor.
Choosing the right font for your photo depends on several things, like the target demographics, the food type, and the message. A font for promoting comforting family-style dish will be different from elegant, classy, fine-dining food. A refreshing summer treat has a different tone from traditional holiday meal.
Consider the readability factor of the texts too, especially if there is a limited negative space. For example, you can place the texts on a solid shape, like a square, circle, paint splatter, brush shape, and many more. You can also place the texts on any negative space available, like the table surface or the wall (depending on the photo).
Let’s find out what Instagram font recommendations you could use to spice up your food photos!
Butter Food is a fun display font to use on Instagram posts. The shape is jovial and a little playful, inspired by a casual handwriting. Its shape and ligatures allow you to highlight a food photo, and you can pair it with a standard font as an additional text.
Butter Food can be used for promoting food associated with summer or delicious snacks. A great font for showcasing your BBQ selections, burgers, sandwiches, and snack food like popcorns, sweets, and ice cream.
Tikgar is a display font inspired by retro element and contemporary shape. Its dynamic strokes and good readability factor will better showcase your Instagram food photos. Tikgar for a lot of food photo types, including for promoting a restaurant, food delivery service, or a specific food brand.
Tikgar can be used to promote various types of food. It goes well with photos of pasta, fried food, tacos, and various other street snack-type food items.
Hugest is a condensed sans serif font that emphasizes the element of modern life in your food photo. It is clean with short ends and even a subtle futuristic vibe. A great Instagram font for promoting food products with modern lifestyle, related to future aspirations.
Hugest is a great font for promoting healthy food, which you can connect to fitness-related themes. For example, you can use it with pictures of granola snacks, protein bars, mineral water or sports drink, and any photos that promote health and fitness journeys.
Refina is a great sans serif to promote any food photos that showcase words like “green”, “natural”, and “health-conscious.” The font has a great flow with subtle variations that give it a contemporary look. It also has the perfect thickness and clean design to make your photo more pleasant.
You can pair Refina with photos of fresh fruits or vegetables, salad, seafood, juice and smoothies, and any products that showcase freshness or natural ingredients.
The aptly named Milky Honey is the perfect serif font for promoting various beverages on Instagram. The font has raised serifs with alternating thickness on each character. The result is an attractive font that looks nothing but boring.
Milky Honey can be used with various beverage photos, like cocktails and mocktails, milk-based drinks like milkshake and smoothie, tea, coffee, and many more. Its elegance and good flow make it a great font for targeting adult demographic. You can also use Milky Honey to promote coffee shops, juice bars, and pubs.
Rooster Rounded Sans has a slightly “softer” look, and its medium thickness creates a good readability factor for Instagram. It has a balance and symmetrical shape, and it does not take away attention from the charm of your food photos.
Rooster’s rounded shape gives a youthful, casual look. This is a great font to pair with photos of summer food like fruit salads, grilled food like burger, hot dog, and corn, ice cream, and frozen treats.
Ranked Hockey is a casual and fun display font. It has a subtle design but without losing its playful vibe. You can use it for photos of cookies, chips, trendy iced coffee or tea, candies, frozen treats, and other “fun” food.
Food photos are the bread and butter of Instagram posts. Make sure you know how to better showcase them and pairing them with the most suitable fonts.
