How I built an Instagram carousel for self.space based on a Khaleej Times article

I completed this as a test task for an SMM designer role: an Instagram carousel for self.space based on a Khaleej Times article. The goal was not just to place the quotes nicely, but to turn the article into a short visual story.

At the core is the idea of a self-portrait studio without a photographer: a person stays alone, relaxes, and controls the whole process themselves. That is why the carousel is built around three key meanings: experience, privacy, and trust. Plus, two videos with the journalist and the Khaleej Times editor as living proof of the idea.

Sometimes an SMM designer’s task looks very simple: there is a media article, a few strong quotes, and a couple of videos — so you just need to «make a carousel».

But in reality, tasks like this are not just about placing text across slides. The important part is to understand what story is already hidden inside the material and build it in a way that makes people swipe to the end.

For this test task, I needed to create an Instagram carousel for self.space — a self-portrait studio where people photograph themselves without a photographer. The reason was an article in Khaleej Times, where the journalist visited the studio, tested the experience herself, and described how it felt.

The main idea was not to say: «we were featured in the media». The main idea was to show that an independent journalistic experience confirmed the essence of the product.

self.space is not just a studio. It is a space where a person stays alone with themselves, the camera, the mirror, and full control over the process.