Design process: On creating the Pods & Sods visual branding

My very good long time friend Craig Smith recently reached out to get some visual branding work for his new podcasting venture, Pods & Sods, which focuses on a love for music. Craig has always enjoyed vinyl, a Gen X sense of retro style, and sensitive, thoughtful conversation, so I think this venture will be a hit. Craig generously asked for my help. We started, as always in this kind of work, with font choice and color palettes. I wanted to meet his needs for vinyl centricity, funkiness, and urbanity.

I submitted this:

pods and sods font and color study by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

I had my personal favorites in this batch, but Craig responded quickly that he loved the upper right font, and the top most palette. I took this information and played with the font and color to show the ways in which the branding might be expressed.

pods and sods logo set 1 by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

In this set, I wanted to play with that retro style, emphasize or de-emphasize certain colors in the palette, and speak to the conversation and love for music. There are more and less elaborate solutions, but I like to give a range of possibilities. Craig responded that he really loved the upper right solution, and we began to talk about formats for Facebook, iTunes, and other uses.

pods and sods final branding set by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

In the final set, I played with a blue linear element, duplicated the groovy record image to balance the overall weight, and created solutions for a square, rectilinear, and profile image. I really enjoyed this process, it only took a few hours, and it resulted in a very fun portfolio piece. Special thanks to my dear friend Craig for the opportunity and willingness to share. I can’t wait to subscribe. If you love good conversations about good music, make sure to like https://www.facebook.com/groups/podsandsods/ on Facebook! If you’d like to have visual branding development for your business or venture, I’d love to help you! I’m always at lemasney@gmail.com and 609 553 9498.