Designing for Vertical: Composition in 9:16 | Maxtech Inter

Vertical is not a crop; it is a different visual language.

The context

Vertical is not a crop; it is a different visual language. This guide skips the theory and keeps what has worked across hundreds of shipped campaigns.

What the data says

• Design at phone arm’s length: 36px minimum type at delivery size
• Respect UI safe zones — captions and buttons eat edges
• Vertical rewards center-weighted motion and vertical vectors
• Front-load the payoff; feeds forgive nothing
• Deliver square and wide variants from the same boards, not by cropping

One metric to remember

82% — of social video views now start muted — compose for silence first.

Where to go from here

Rotate your thinking, not your canvas.

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