Why some Instagram profiles are coloured

A coloured Instagram profile, in yellow, pink, blue or any other shade instead of the usual white or black, is a perk of Instagram Rings, an award Instagram gives to 25 creators a year. There is no setting, app or subscription that unlocks it. You cannot buy it. You can only be chosen for it.

What a coloured Instagram profile is

Every Instagram profile normally sits on the same backdrop: white in light mode, black in dark mode. Your photo, bio and grid change. The frame around them does not.

A coloured Instagram profile replaces that backdrop with a colour the account owner picked. Adrian Per, the film director behind @omgadrian, runs his in a warm yellow that matches the bold yellow type on his post covers. You notice it before you read a single word.

The colour rarely comes alone. Look for two more signals on the same profile:

• A gold ring around the profile photo, instead of the usual pink and orange gradient. It only appears while the account has a Story up, so most of the time you won’t see it.
• A Rings Winner label under the bio. Tap it and you get the full list of that year’s winners.

The label is the giveaway: see it next to a coloured backdrop and you are looking at an Instagram Rings winner.

Where the colour comes from: Instagram Rings

Instagram launched Rings in October 2025 as its first award for creators. Instagram describes it as an award for people who “aren’t afraid to take creative chances”. The first 25 winners were announced on 16 October 2025, Adrian among them.

There is no prize money. Instead, winners receive:

1. A physical ring. The 2025 ring was designed by Grace Wales Bonner. The 2026 ring, by Emily Adams Bode Aujla, is a four-leaf clover cut from Connemara marble.
2. A gold Story ring that shows across the app, on the profile and in the Stories bar at the top of the feed.
3. A custom profile backdrop colour, the coloured background this article is about. The 2026 winners got an expanded colour picker, and they use it: Erling Haaland’s profile runs a red gradient, while model Bhavitha Mandava’s is deep purple.
4. A custom like button. Adrian turned his into his Shiba Inu, Boba.

The second edition landed on 29 October 2026. Its 25 winners include footballer Erling Haaland, rapper Little Simz, designer Salehe Bembury and comedian Jordan Firstman. So if your feed has suddenly filled with colour again, that is why.

How to get a coloured Instagram profile

You don’t apply for one. There is no form, no waiting list and no follower threshold.

A panel of judges nominates the creators they rate and votes on the final list. In 2025 that panel included Spike Lee, Marc Jacobs, Marques Brownlee, Pat McGrath and Instagram’s own Adam Mosseri and Eva Chen. In 2026 it grew to 14 judges, among them Donatella Versace, A$AP Rocky and Chloé Zhao.

Followers are not the deciding factor either. The 2025 class ran from creators with a few hundred thousand followers, like BMX rider Nigel Sylvester, to Grammy winner Laufey with 7.5 million. Mosseri said in August 2026 that Instagram wants to keep the award focused on young, small and up-and-coming creative people. With Erling Haaland (more than 76 million followers) and Little Simz (more than 1.2 million) in the 2026 class, the list doesn’t entirely live up to that yet.

One practical warning. Any app, shortcut or service that promises you a coloured profile is not offering an Instagram feature, because Instagram only gives it to its winners. At best it changes what you see on your own screen. At worst it is after your login. Never hand your Instagram password to a tool promising something Instagram does not sell.

What the colour actually means

Here is the part I find most interesting as a coach.

The blue verified badge can now be bought through a Meta Verified subscription. It still tells you an account is who it says it is. It no longer tells you the account is special.

The coloured profile works the other way round. Money cannot buy it, and a big following does not earn it. Peers decide your work is original, and only then does Instagram change the way your profile looks.

Adrian explained his yellow profile in a post in February 2026, because people kept asking. His answer to how you win: “Be SO you, that you cannot be replicated.” He went on to argue that originality matters more than ever, now that so much content looks the same and can be copied by AI or by human copycats.

That is the signal Instagram chose to make visible, and it comes up with my clients too. They ask me about coloured profiles, and about something closely related: how much a big following is really worth.

My answer to both is the same.

The moment something can be bought, it loses its value. That goes for the blue tick you pay for the official way, and just as much for the followers and likes some people buy the unofficial way.

That should not discourage you. It should push you to stand out with what nobody can sell you: the content you create yourself.

What this means for your own profile

You cannot change your background colour. You can make your profile just as recognisable in the first three seconds. Adrian’s profile shows how, and none of it depends on the award.

1. Own one visual signature. His yellow is not only the backdrop. It runs through the type on his covers, so the page and the content read as one brand. Pick one colour, one type style or one way of framing, and use it on every cover and pinned post.
2. Treat your three pinned posts as your front page. Adrian pins who he is, what he offers and a skill he is known for. A new visitor understands him in one glance. Ask what your three pins say to someone who has never met you.
3. Write a bio that names what only you do. His reads “Content to help you make better content”. One line, one clear promise. If your bio could belong to a hundred other accounts, rewrite it.

This is what personal branding comes down to on Instagram: being recognisable before anyone reads the caption.

The real lesson

Instagram had every tool to reward reach. It chose to reward originality instead, and it marked the winners with the one thing it never sells.

You don’t need a gold ring to apply that lesson. You need a profile that could only be yours.

What on your profile could only belong to you?