Complex Social Portfolio

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At Complex, I run the @complex instagram (we call it “IG Main” to differentiate it from the other Complex verticals like @complexsports and @complexstyle). I think of it as a bunch of jobs rolled into one: community/operations manager, news editor, visual designer, copywriter, strategist, talent relations manager, and content (vibes) curator.

I’m responsible for uncovering trending and breaking news (or anything out there that the cultural zeitgeist is tapped into), discerning what’s relevant enough to warrant a post keeping our audience in mind, and ultimately designing and posting the images.

The latter half of the process includes sourcing imagery via Getty (or liaising directly with photographers to get photo use permission), laying everything out in Photoshop to make sure each post fits brand guidelines, writing provocative and engaging headlines, scouring the internet for commentary (ie. memes, tweets, TikTok videos or comments) that would provide an “internet reacts” layer to the post if relevant, securing permission from original sources if leveraging UGC, sequencing the Instagram carousel, writing the caption, and posting. I also have free reign to respond to comments (aka I get to clap back at trolls whenever I want).

Below is a running collection of all the Instagram posts that I’ve designed and wrote captions for. This will be constantly updated as I’m still working in this job. Hover over these images to get a sense of what the post is about (think this might only work on desktop, sorry to those of you who found my website from my IG bio), and click on the images directly to link out to the full carousels and read the captions I wrote.

designed, sequenced, and edited on Adobe Photoshop. captions written using my brain.