Reader Tangents Podcast
Show and Episode Art
Design Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign
Emma Skies, a content creator, book publisher, and good friend of mine, launched a book-themed podcast called Reader Tangents and enlisted my help in designing the logo and show art. Despite having an established brand of her own, she gave me considerable creative freedom, providing only examples from other podcasts and general inspiration to guide my understanding of her preferences.
I started by developing several quick logo concepts using black and Emma's signature blue. I integrated book-related elements and explored ideas inspired by Emma's examples. From these, I curated a small selection of the strongest concepts for her, and she ultimately chose her top three.
I then refined Emma's selected logos and matched them with show art concepts. She wanted her name on the art but was unsure about including a photo of herself. Therefore, I created versions with her photo from her social media, as well as alternatives featuring her bookshelf and one centered solely on the logo. The logos were interchangeable, allowing for easy swaps if a different logo was preferred with a specific concept.
After Emma’s Bindery subscribers voted on her top two logos and concepts, we proceeded with the winning design, which showcased a photograph of Emma by her bookshelves, complemented by an open book logo on torn paper.
After finalizing the logo and receiving Emma's new photos, I developed three distinct episode art options: one featuring only the episode title, another highlighting special guests, and a third for author interviews. Upon refinement and final approval, I created a Photoshop artboard template incorporating all of Emma's graphics, enabling her to independently create future episode graphics.
Listen to Reader Tangents episodes HERE.