What is Aspect Ratio?
Aspect ratio is the proportion of a video frame’s width to its height, written as two numbers: 16:9 for landscape, 9:16 for vertical, 1:1 for square, 4:5 for a tall feed post. Each placement has a native ratio, and a video delivered in the wrong one is letterboxed, cropped or rejected.
- Category
- Creative & Video Production
- Also called
- Platform ratio, Video frame ratio, Native ratio, Vertical video
- In our work
- Creative production
Ratio is decided before production rather than after, because a frame composed for 16:9 rarely survives a crop to 9:16 with its subject intact. The usual protections are to compose with a safe area for the tightest crop in mind, to keep important action near the centre, or to produce the key shots more than once. Text and logos are the first casualties of a careless crop, since they tend to sit at the edges where the crop takes place.
Placements impose more than a ratio: maximum duration, file size, caption behaviour, and safe zones where the platform’s own interface covers part of the frame. A vertical video with a caption burned into the bottom eighth will have that caption hidden behind a username on some feeds. Delivering a master per ratio, then checking each one on a phone rather than a monitor, is what prevents a batch of assets that pass upload and read badly in the wild.
Common questions.
Which aspect ratios does a brand actually need?
Most campaigns end up with three: 16:9 for a website or YouTube, 9:16 for vertical feeds and stories, and 1:1 or 4:5 for in-feed posts. Producing all of them from one shoot or one generation batch costs much less than adding a ratio after delivery, so the list belongs in the brief.
Related terms.
Cutdown
Creative & Video ProductionA cutdown is a shorter edit of a finished video, built from the same material to fit a placement that will not take the full length: a 30-second film reduced to 15 and 6 seconds for paid social.
Shot List
Creative & Video ProductionA shot list is the numbered inventory of every shot a video needs, recording for each one the subject, framing, camera movement, location and approximate duration.
UGC Ad
Creative & Video ProductionA UGC ad is a paid advert made to look like a post from an ordinary user rather than from a brand: handheld framing, a person talking to camera, natural light, unpolished delivery.
Hook
Creative & Video ProductionA hook is the opening of a video, usually the first few seconds, whose only job is to stop a viewer scrolling past.
Scoping a project?
Reading definitions because you are scoping a project? Skip ahead and just ask.