It's All Just A Bunch of BS
Brand Identity, Campaigns, Film & Motion Graphics
Visual and verbal identity for award winning podcast on behavioral science (BS) in the wild. Flashy episode covers and cheeky titles serve to bring the sec-ci back into science.
Selling science is not easy, but done right, science can be sort of sexy.
Leveraging the fact that people like to judge a book, or in this case, a podcast, by its cover; I used the oldest trick in the book, pun intended, by making eye-catching cover visuals for each podcast episode to make the most out of a first impression in an attention-span driven society.
Seeing that this is a podcast about humans and their behavior and that the guests are always very well-known and famous people in the field, I knew we needed to have faces on the cover. Afterall, research does show people connect quicker and easier with other people's faces.
But it wasn't just going to be something f*cking boring like a good ol' portrait. No, instead the idea of drawing the guest either dressed up in a certain way that represented their story or doing some activity that embodied the episode's essence sounded like a much better strategy, one that we eventually went with!
This not only makes the cover look interesting but for those who are interested, they can also get a quick glimpse of what the episode might be about from just looking at the cover. You don't even need to read the description text, now that's what I call a "visual episode trailer". I'm trademarking this, so don't get any ideas.
Distilling and capturing the essence of each episode and turning it into one piece of cover art is as challenging as it is exhilarating, but the brainstorming is the best part – just like the Daniel Caesar song.
Upon implementing the new artwork and illustrations, the total number of monthly episode downloads increased by 41%, and the average consumption rate of episode listening increased by 11%.
I am just thrilled with the animated GIFs Iris creates weekly for my podcast covers. And my listeners love them just as much! Iris is attentive and committed to bringing out the essence of each episode in the most creative and unexpected ways. Her designs and concepts always manage to capture the feeling of the episode and the guest I have on the show.
Iris is also very receptive to my ideas so we often riff off of each other's vision. But best of all, Iris meets tight deadlines and delivers high quality work each and every time. Our collaboration is effortless. I feel very lucky to have her working with me on the many future episodes to come, and I encourage anyone in need of creative work to reach out to Iris. She's the best in the business.
— Nick, Host of It's All Just A Bunch of BS Podcast
