Aspect ratio 9:16

9:16 is the aspect ratio of vertical video: 9 units wide for every 16 units tall. It is the native format of Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Stories, because it fills a phone screen held upright. The standard resolution is 1080 x 1920 pixels.

An aspect ratio only describes proportions. 720 x 1280 and 2160 x 3840 are also 9:16; 1080 x 1920 is the size most vertical video is made and posted at, and the one templates and safe-zone numbers are usually given for.

Formats compared

Designing for 9:16

A vertical frame is tall and narrow, which changes layout:

• Stack, do not spread. Text and elements go top to bottom, in short lines.
• Mind the interface. Apps cover the top 250 px, the bottom 480 px and the right 140 px of a 1080 x 1920 video. Keep text inside x 60 to 940 and y 250 to 1440; see safe zone.
• Big type. Headlines at 72 px or more and body text at 44 px or more on the 1080-wide canvas.
• Re-lay out, do not crop. Turning a 16:9 video into 9:16 by cropping cuts off text and faces. Code-based video can lay each scene out again for the new shape instead.

The cover

A Reel's cover is also 1080 x 1920, but the profile grid shows only a centered crop of it (the middle 1080 x 1350), so a cover needs its words and focal point in that area.

In practice

When you make video with code, the aspect ratio is set on the canvas: in HyperFrames, npx hyperframes init my-reel --resolution portrait creates a 1080 x 1920 project. In Motion Cheat Code, every template is 9:16 except the Lower Third, which is 16:9 for horizontal video, and the cover studio exports both Reel covers and 16:9 thumbnails.