Portrait format 9:16

9:16 is the upright image format for Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and TikTok. It fills the phone screen completely, which gives it the highest attention of any format, and it demands a composition of its own that cannot be cut out of a landscape film.

What changes in composition

In portrait, width is scarce and height is abundant. That inverts the usual rules: a face fills the frame quickly, a landscape looks lost. Movement works better vertically than horizontally, because otherwise it crosses the frame in a fraction of a second.

Then there are the platform controls. Profile details sit at the top, text, audio and buttons at the bottom, the like and share icons on the right. The safe area is a strip in the middle, and anything that has to be read belongs there.

How we work with it

In generative production we produce directly in the target format instead of cropping. That is the practical advantage over a shoot: the same shot becomes two generations in 16:9 and 9:16, both correctly composed. On a shoot you would have to set up twice or sacrifice one version.

For ads we place text and call to action inside the safe area and check the result on a real phone, not only in the editing suite.

Frequently asked questions

Related terms

Read on: All terms in the glossary • UGC video