Designed this way

SCOPE

Naming
Visual Identity Design
Brand Language

Branding and Identity design for my own podcast. It's an initiative to start candid conversations with designers and other creative folks to bring out the stories about the realities of living a creative life. You can check it out on designedthisway.com

As a young Indian designer, I felt that the kind of conversations I was having with other designers about their creative practice were really useful to me. These conversations would fill a void that most design books, articles and essays didn’t. Candid conversations are intimate, personal and raw.

In 2018, I decided to start a podcast to document and publish coversations like these. If you would like to know more about why and how I started this podcast, you can watch my talk at Brand New Conference 2019 or read my interview with Homegrown Magazine.

BRAND DIFFERENTIATORS

With my podcast, I wanted to have three major intentional differentiators that could make it unique. These differentiators also helped me create a unique identity.

01
To start candid conversations with creative folks, and to bring out the stories about the realities of living a creative life.

02
Not just the stories of courage, hard work and success; but also the stories of mistakes, rejections and doubts.

03
To have conversations that reveal the diversity of thoughts, practices and opinions that exist in the creative world.

TYPOGRAPHY

I chose Massimo Graffia as the primary brand typeface. This typeface has multiple alternatives for each glyph. It gives me the flexibility to write any sentence uniquely using different permutations of the glyphs. It was also great to simulate the texture and diversity of speech for each guest and episode.

VISUAL IDENTITY ELEMENTS

For reasons beyond explanation, I feel every designer would agree that designing for yourself is much more difficult than designing for someone else. When you know the infinite possibilities that you're capable of, committing to a single idea becomes a difficult task. I explored multiple ideas through sketches, but I couldn't finalise one. After a point, I gave up and tore off the sketches. Later when I looked at the torn paper, I felt that it was the perfect metaphor for the identity I was creating. With the podcast, I wanted myself and the guests to embrace the imperfections, rawness and beauty of meandering conversations. Therefore, I decided to use torn paper effect as the key visual element in the brand identity.

MAIN IDENTITY EXPLORATIONS

I used the scanned torn papers to create multiple ideas and finalsed on four visuals that I liked.

THE SELECTED IDEA

I selected the idea that had stronger storytelling and flexibility w.r.t the podcast. This idea shows the podcast as the bridge and faciliators between the two opposites - the listener and the guest, the personal and professional, the glamour and the struggle and so on.

EPISODE COVER ART

I wanted to create a sense of co-creation. The typography and visual elements are taken from the podcast's identity but personalised with each guest's photograph and colours taken from their personal branding or popular work. This system creates unique cover art each time and also gives the guest a sense of identity for that particular episode.

PROMOTIONAL GRAPHICS

Social media and promotional graphics can be created easily using two major identity elements - the typography and the torn paper visual. The flexibility of the identity system facilitates unique brand expressions that are still identifiable. It also works in motion graphics.

Like what you see?
Got a vision that keeps you up at night?
Let’s conjure it into reality!