How to Make Instagram Stories in Seconds Without Photoshop

Final product image
What You’ll Be Creating

Need to create beautiful looking Instagram stories, but don’t have the required tools to start doing so?

Well, what if I told you that there’s an easy way you can change that, using Placeit’s online Instagram Story Templates.

Believe it or not, you can actually use templates for Instagram stories, such as an Instagram caption template, an Instagram story highlight template, an Instagram story cover template, or maybe an Instagram question template, which you can customize in order to tell the world what you feel.

By using an Instagram template, you remove any need for a third-party design app such as Photoshop, and rely completely on Placeit’s online Instagram stories templates, which as you will see are incredibly easy to use and customize.

From finding the perfect Instagram story template to how to make Instagram story templates, I’ll walk you through the entire process and show you how easy it is to do so using just a couple of clicks here and there.

So, if you feel you’re ready to design your own Instagram template story, grab a fresh cup of coffee and let’s jump straight into it!

Follow along with us over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube Channel:

1. What Is Placeit?

Before we begin, I wanted to take a couple of moments and quickly talk about what Placeit is and how it can do all the hard work for you.

If you aren’t a designer yourself, most of the time that means that you won’t have access to the tools and resources that designers usually use, such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Designer, Sketch, etc.

But what if sometimes you actually need to create something yourself, but don’t feel like spending a lot of money on a graphics suite that you probably won’t use all that often?

Well, when this happens, Placeit can prove to be the perfect fit, since it comes with a set of dedicated online tools that help you create professional banners, mockups, logos, etc. using just a couple of clicks.

That being said, let’s see how easy it is to design your own Instagram Story using Placeit’s custom Instagram Story Templates.

placeit instagram story templates

2. How to Access the Instagram Story Templates

Before we can begin working on the actual design, we first have to navigate to the correct section of the website in order to be able to access the Instagram Story Templates.

To do so, we’re going to be using the horizontal navigation menu by heading over to Designs, and then clicking on Instagram Stories.

example of locating the instagram stories link

As soon as we click on the link, the website will redirect us to a new page, on the left side of which we’ll find the Tags menu. This will allow us to filter the available designs using the provided categories.

example of available instagram stories categories

3. How to Use the Instagram Stories Templates to Make a Custom Instagram Story Design

So now that we’ve seen how easy it is to find the tool, let’s take a look at the actual process of using it.

The first step that we need to take is decide which design template we’re going to be using for the actual Instagram Story. As you’ve probably seen, there are quite a large number of really good-looking designs that we can choose from, depending on what we’re aiming for. Here are some that I really liked.

Insta Quote Template

example of quote insta story template
Quote Instagram Story Template

Black Friday Sale Template

example of sale insta story template
Black Friday Sale Instagram Story Template

Sale Discount Template

example of discount insta story template
Sale Discount Instagram Story Template

Save the Rainforest Template

example of save the rainforest insta story template
Save the Rainforest Instagram Story Template

Romantic Post Template

example of romantic post insta story template
Romantic Post Instagram Story Template

For the current example, I decided to go with this autumn-themed design, which looks absolutely beautiful.

example of chosen instagram story template
Fall Instagram Story Template

Once we’ve decided which design template we’re going to be using, it’s time to go through the process of customizing and making it our own.

Quick tip: no matter what template you end up using, the layout will mostly be the same. On the left side you’ll have all your text-related options, while on the right one you’ll find all your background and design-related ones.

example of template layout

Step 1

We’re going to quickly change the default text using the two input fields, by simply selecting and then overwriting it with our own.

example of changing the default text

Step 2

Once we’ve entered the desired text, we can go ahead and customize both the font and colors for the two text segments using the provided dropdown lists.

For this example, I’m going to set both fonts to TragicMarker, and the colors to white.

changing the fonts and colors used for the text segments

Step 3

Once we’re done working on the text part of our design, we can move over to the right side of the page, where the first section that we’ll see is Doodle, which lets us change the center illustration used by the template.

We can choose from one of the provided illustrations, or we can upload one of our own using the Custom Image button. We can even remove it completely by clicking the No Image button.

For this example, I’m going to go with the fox one since I really like how it looks, and it works better with the “Sweater Weather” message.

example of changing the center illustration

Step 4

Moving on down we have Background, where again, we can go with one of the provided background images, upload a custom one of our own, or even remove it completely so that we can use a solid fill color.

In my case, I’m going to stick to the default image used by the template, since the colors blend perfectly, creating the autumn feel that I’m going for.

using the default background image

Step 5

Since the template supports interactive editing, we can easily adjust the position and size of some of the text and shapes. Just select them, which will bring up their bounding box, and then click and drag them to another location, or drag the bounding box’s squares outwards or inwards, depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

For the current example, I’m going to enlarge the two text segments just a little bit to make them more visible.

Quick tip: If for some reason we aren’t happy with our changes, we can easily undo all of them using the Reset Layout button.

example of adjusting the position and size of an element

Great Job

As always, I hope you had fun working on this little project, and most importantly managed to learn something new and useful during the process.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them within the comments section and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!

Expand Your Creative Skills!

Just finished going through this quick tutorial, and feel like learning more of what it takes to become a visual creative? Well, if that’s the case, then you’re in luck since I’ve put together a little list which should get you up and going in no time!

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