Client
Paul Byrne and Betsy Leatherman
Role
Concept, brand identity, art direction, motion direction
Made at
Independent
Scope
Brand identity
Concept
Art direction
Motion direction
Duration
One week
Background
An identity had already been made for the podcast and it had not landed with the hosts, so I came in late to replace it with a week to concept, design and hand over. It had to work in motion rather than only standing still, and the hosts work with their own video editor, so everything had to be modular enough for someone else to animate without it coming apart.
Approach
Research came first, through episodes, audience and competitors. Most leadership podcasts aimed at Gen X play it visually safe, so the gap was not hard to find. The references I was given were Schiphol signage and Up in the Air. Clean, directional, corporate. They pointed somewhere colder than the podcast is, and leaning further into travel risked pulling the identity away from what the show actually is. The wayfinding language survived that; the travel reading did not. Wayfinding symbols repeat and animate well, and they carry the idea of a podcast that points you somewhere. From there it was type, colour and shape worked out with animation assumed from the start, and the logo built in variants so it could be handed over and edited without breaking.
Outcome
The identity runs across social, motion, episode art and promotional formats. Paul called out the Brady Bunch energy and the Zoom breakout room reference, and both hosts noted how different it felt from the rest of the leadership space. For a podcast built on honest conversation, it finally looks like the thing it is.
