What Lies Beyond Thought
@whatliesbeyondthought
A weekly Instagram series turning frontier science into something you can read in eight slides.
WLBT is a content brand for the merely curious — people who'd never read a CRISPR paper but would absolutely scroll a clean carousel that explains it. Each post is a slide deck (intro → 4–6 content slides → engagement → CTA), produced in Figma against a tight design system, with a Premiere-cut video for the meatier topics.
Channels
@whatliesbeyondthought
Primary surface. Carousel posts + occasional Reels.
WLBT · long-form
Long-form video edits of the meatier carousels (CRISPR, Quantum). Branded banner in place; series is short.
Signals
- Posts shipped
- 8 · across 2 weeks
- Production stack
- Figma + Premiere Pro
- Series
- Future Advancements (current)
- Cadence
- 1 / day on a release week
The W5H
Who
Built for the technically curious non-specialist. The reader who knows the word CRISPR but not what it actually does. Designers, PMs, students, smart generalists — the people who'd love to understand AI / quantum / biotech but won't read a paper to do it.
What
An editorial Instagram series formatted as 8-slide carousels (1:1) with optional Reels (9:16). Each carousel follows a fixed structure: Introduction → 4–6 Content slides → Engagement question → Quote / takeaway → CTA. A Premiere-cut long-form video lives alongside the slides for the dense topics.
Why
Most science communication on Instagram is either bait or a textbook. WLBT picks one frontier-science topic per post, builds the explanation in slide-by-slide chunks, and is intentionally calm — black background, neon-cyan accents, scientific imagery. The goal is one clear takeaway per swipe.
When
Started 2024. First series (Future Advancements) ran across two release weeks, one post per day. Cadence intentionally low — quality over publishing pressure.
Where
Instagram is the primary surface. YouTube serves as the home for long-form videos that don't fit a carousel. Figma is the canvas for everything visual; Premiere Pro for video.
How
Each topic gets a Figma frame set sized 1080×1080 for the slide deck and 1080×1920 for the Reel/cover. The design system is component-driven — the same intro/CTA/engagement components are reused across topics so visual identity is instant. Content slides 4–8 are the topic-specific payload. The intro slide is the hook, the engagement slide invites comments, the CTA closes the loop.
Brand report
Positioning
WLBT sits between a science magazine and a meme account. It's slower than the meme account and friendlier than the magazine. The promise is: in two minutes of scrolling, you'll know one specific thing about a real frontier topic — not a metaphor, not a vibe, the actual thing. That's the audience contract.
Voice
Plain language, no hedging, occasional humour. Specific over poetic. Numbers and concrete examples beat metaphors when both work. The first-person 'I' rarely appears — the brand isn't a personality, it's a lens.
Cadence + restraint
One topic per release. The temptation on Instagram is to post daily to feed the algorithm; the trade-off there is that production quality drops and the brand becomes background noise. WLBT runs in named series with deliberate gaps. Better to ship one good carousel a week than five forgettable ones.
Where it goes next
Two open questions. (1) Format expansion — same content as long-form blog posts, hosted under /writing here, so search picks them up. (2) Sound design on the Reels — currently captioned only; a short voiceover or musical bed would lift retention significantly.
Design analysis
Identity
Wordmark is WLBT in a custom neon stencil sitting on a double-helix wave. Colour: black field, neon-cyan stroke, occasional teal accent. No secondary mark — the wordmark and the slide system carry the brand together. Heavy reliance on a few signature shapes (helix curves, grid backgrounds, subtle scanlines) keeps the visual identity legible even when topics change.
Slide system
Each slide is one of five archetypes — Introduction, Content, Engagement, Quote, CTA. Archetypes have fixed type scale, fixed margins, and a consistent header pattern (handle + SWIPE indicator). The reader's eye is trained after one carousel: title at top, body in the middle band, action at the bottom. The constraint speeds production and makes the brand recognisable from a thumb-sized preview.
Type
Display: a heavy condensed sans for headlines (FUTURE ADVANCEMENTS). Body: a clean humanist sans at small sizes. Mono used sparingly for slide numbers and metadata. The type-pair earns its keep by being unmistakable at thumbnail size — the headline alone carries half the brand recognition.
Photo + 3D treatment
Topic visuals (DNA helix, neural net diagrams, qubits) are AI-rendered then masked with a teal gradient + scanline overlay so they sit inside the system. No stock imagery left raw. Every image earns its placement by being styled to the system, even if it took the longest part of production.
UX analysis
Reader journey · in one carousel
Slide 1 (Introduction): hook + topic title. The whole job is making you swipe. Slides 2–6 (Content): one idea per slide, in plain language, with one visual. Slide 7 (Engagement): a question that invites a comment — increases reach + signals to the algorithm. Slide 8 (Quote / Takeaway): a single sentence that compresses the whole carousel into a screenshot-worthy line. Slide 9 (CTA): follow + see series. Five archetypes, every time.
Why the engagement slide isn't an afterthought
Comments outrank likes for Instagram reach. The engagement slide is engineered to produce them — open question, no obvious right answer, low-effort to type. On the carousels that perform best, the engagement slide is also the most-screenshotted (people send it to friends to start their own thread).
Reels vs carousels
Carousels reward depth — readers swipe at their own pace, can re-read. Reels reward repeatable hooks — autoplay, loops, low friction. WLBT uses Reels as the headline trailer for the heavy carousels (CRISPR, Quantum) where there's enough motion in the topic to fill 30 seconds. Most posts stay carousel-only.
What's measured
Saves + comments first (signal of "I want this later"), reach + profile visits second (signal of distribution), follow conversion third. Likes treated as noise. Tracked manually since the series is small enough; would warrant a Looker Studio dashboard at >50 posts.
Screens
Introduction slide — the hook
Every carousel opens with the same archetype: title locked in the upper third, SWIPE indicator top-right, handle bottom-left, topic visual filling the lower band. The job of this slide is to make you swipe.
Content slide — one idea per swipe
Content slides 4–8 are the topic payload. One headline. Two-line body. One visual. Slide number bottom-left, bookmark icon bottom-right (a visual nudge toward 'save for later').
Engagement slide — earn the comment
Same archetype every time: open question top-third, expanded prompt below. Designed so the screenshot of just this slide is shareable on its own — people DM it to friends to start the thread there.
Takeaway slide — one screenshottable line
The whole carousel compresses into a single sentence here. If a reader saves anything, this is the slide they save.
Reel cover — 9:16 trailer
For the meatier topics (CRISPR, Quantum) a Premiere-cut Reel doubles as a trailer for the carousel. Same headline + subhead system, just rotated and scaled to 9:16.
YouTube channel banner
Long-form home for the deep dives. Same wordmark, wider canvas, dimmer palette so it doesn't fight thumbnails.
Note
Folder name on disk is whatliesbeyonfthought (typo); the live handle is @whatliesbeyondthought. The Figma source file and the Premiere project files live in the same folder as the exported PNGs and are available on request.