How to Create a Contact Poster in iOS 17 (2023)

if you’ve updated your iPhone to iOS 17, you now have access to Contact Posters—a feature that allows you to personalize how you appear on other people’s devices when contacting them. It works within the Contacts app, Phone app, FaceTime, Messages, and AirDrop, as well as third-party calling apps. You can customize the poster to include a photo or Memoji of yourself, as well as alter the font and color. Below, we break down all the steps on how to create and edit your very own.

For a full list of all the major features of Apple’s latest operating system and how to download it, check out our iOS 17 roundup.

How to Customize Your Contact Poster

To start the process, open Contacts and tap My Card at the top of your contacts list. Then, tap on the section labeled Contact Photo & Poster and select Continue. From there, enter your name. This section is fully customizable. You can use your full name, just your first name, a nickname, or whatever your heart desires. If you choose to leave it blank, your phone number will appear instead.

Once that’s done, you can move on to the fun part: Choose Your Poster. This is the main image that will appear in addition to your contact name. You can pick from four options:

• Camera: Take a photo right from the Camera app to set as your poster.
• Photos: Scroll through your camera roll to choose an existing photo you’d like to use. You can pinch to crop it if needed.
• Memoji: Whether it’s your own Memoji or one of Apple’s offerings, you can represent yourself as a cute animation. If you don’t like the existing expressions, you can use the front-facing camera to capture your own unique expression.
• Monogram: If you don’t want to use an image, you can opt to display your initials instead.

Once you choose your visual, you can then edit the style, size, and color of the font. If you choose to use a photo (whether you take a new one or select one from your camera roll), you can apply a filter by swiping the left and cycling through the gallery. Depending on the filter, you can choose a background color too. If you go with a Memoji or monogram, you don’t have the ability to add a filter, but you can pick from the suggested background colors (you can edit how transparent or opaque it is using the slider) or choose your own using the color wheel.

If you’re setting a portrait mode photo as your poster or using a Memoji, you can also turn Depth Effect on or off by tapping the icon in the lower right-hand corner. If it’s turned on, your name will sit behind the subject of the photo; if it’s turned off, your name will be displayed discreetly in front of the image.

When you’re satisfied with your Contact Poster, tap Done in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. You’ll then see a full preview of your poster—which is what will show up on other people’s phones when you call. If you want to make changes, tap Back. If not, tap Continue.

Next, you’ll be prompted to edit your Contact Photo—this is what appears alongside your name in the Contacts app and also in Messages. If you want to edit it, you can crop the photo, choose a background color, or pick an entirely different photo. Then, tap Continue. If you don’t want to edit it, you can tap Skip.

Lastly, you can tweak the settings and also make any last-minute edits to your Contact Poster. You can toggle the Name & Photo Sharing feature on or off—the latter disables the feature completely. Under the Share Automatically tab, you can choose between Contacts Only (your updated name, photo, and contact poster will automatically be shared when you’re interacting with a specific contact) or Always Ask (you’ll see a prompt appear asking if you want to share it with each contact you’re interacting with). Then, finally, tap Done.

How to Edit Your Contact Poster

Thankfully, you don’t have to create an entirely new Contact Poster if you want to make any changes to it. Instead, you can edit the existing one. Go to Contacts > My Card > Edit and tap Edit again underneath the photo of your poster. Then, under the Contact Poster, tap Customize and select Poster. From there, you can edit your name (and the font), the background, and the Depth Effect. You can also swap out your Memoji or photo with another one. To save your changes, tap Done.

How to Swap Between Your Contact Posters

Similar to the way you can create multiple lock screens, you can also create and save multiple Contact Posters to swap between. Go to Contacts > My Card > Edit, and tap Edit again. This is where all your saved Contact Posters live. Swipe to the left to cycle through all the different options. When you find the one you want to use, tap on it. This will automatically bring you back to your contact card with the updated Contact Poster. It’s a fun option to have for when you start to get bored with your current poster and want to switch it up.