LOGO DESIGN | SOCIAL TEMPLATES
RS&H
Pass The Mic
Podcast Branding
CLIENT
RS&H (In-House)
INDUSTRY
Architecture, Engineering, & Consulting
YEAR COMPLETED
2024
MY ROLE
Art Direction
Logo Development and Iteration
Social Graphics and Template Creation
THE CHALLENGE
Create a brand for RS&H’s new, internal podcast, “Pass-The-Mic”—a show developed for RS&H associates to share their specific industry knowledge with colleagues
Establish a more casual look and feel without losing the core DNA of the RS&H brand
Develop the visual identity in parallel with the development of the show’s format and content schedule
THE OBJECTIVE
Design a logo and associated graphics to brand and promote the new podcast internally
Create a set of templates in Adobe Express that could be edited and shared by social partners to promote the podcast launch as well as individual episodes
THE BRAIN DUMP
WORD WEB & EXPLORATORY SKETCHING
With any branding project, I like to start with a word-web. To prep for this, I’ll note down all of the variables for the project, then move into secondary research, before beginning this brainstorming process.
RESEARCH
I collected brand elements from our ongoing Visual Identity Refresh, internal ERG group logos, and both final and WIP assets for our external podcast, AEC Perspectives, to identify how they intersect with the overall RS&H brand in style and palette.
Project Variables
What product does the logo represent?
Internal knowledge-sharing podcast
New hosts each episode
How prominent will the logo be in different layouts and on different backgrounds?
What text or imagery needs to be included?
Primary Text: “Pass The Mic”
Secondary Text: “An RS&H Podcast/Infocast” or “A Podcast/Infocast by RS&H:”
What is the palette and what variations are needed?
Any starting ideas from client(s)?
For this project, an initial idea of “a microphone swooshing in an upward motion like [the RS&H] ampersand” was provided as a jumping-off point.
GOING DIGITAL
VECTOR LOGO EXPLORATION
After following a myriad of visual tangents in the sketching phase, I shared the initial sketches with my team for a quick gut-check on what felt promising. I then recreated the selected sketches in vector, exploring further variations within the digital workspace before presenting two new groups of logo options and variations.
VECTOR REFINEMENT
Following another review from my team, I narrowed down the pool of potential logos and experimented with a few additional edits, before exploring some options for promotional assets and templates.
Considerations at This Stage
How should the microphone graphic look? How do marks within the microphone inform other design elements?
Type case: How does an ALL CAPS logo read versus Sentence Case or all lower case?
How does the secondary text fit within the logomark?
What stroke/fill combinations allow the logo text to “pop”, both within the logomark itself, and in the context of a branded layout?
COLOR ME IMPRESSED
COLOR BALANCE
At this stage, our logo design was nearly locked in, so it was time to play around with different colorways.
MAKING IT POP
While the prior round of color options yielded some clear, legible options, the logo still felt a bit flat. At this stage, we opted to add a pop of gold from our brand palette into the logo.
This hue, while warm and bright, was still a highly saturated value, allowing it to grab the eye when enclosed in a stroke, as in the word “PASS”, but recede behind “THE MIC” when used as the thin stroke of the microphone cable.
Considerations at This Stage
Which colorways were visible against each background value? What was the simplest solution to creating an accessible, readable logo?
Which color combinations provided the best contrast between the graphic elements in the logo and the text?
How did having a stroke/fill/combination in the text impact the simplicity and/or readability of the logo on different backgrounds?
THE PART INFORMS THE WHOLE
FINALIZING A TEMPLATE
With the main logo design finalized, it was time to return to the episode templates and promotional assets for our internal newsletter and homepage for RS&H’s intranet service, Blaze.
Considerations at This Stage
How did the placement and intersection of graphic elements and text guide the viewer through the layout?
How much real estate should the logo have?
Enough to be visible, including the secondary text
Not so much that it distracts from primary copy like episode title, host name(s), premiere date
How can color blocks be used to group key information for each episode separately from the logo?
Which graphic elements in the logo (i.e. hatch lines in microphone or curvilinear stroke of microphone cable) can be brought into templates to tie them into the logo?
How would the template need to adjust for more than one speaker?
How would the template function within Adobe Express?
Could a combination of native and imported graphic elements work to create a visually striking layout without compromising ease of use for social partners to swap out photos and copy?
PASS THE MIC!
FINAL LOGOS
With all of the development work completed, we had our final suite of logos, with 6 colorways for both the Stacked Layout and Horizontal Layouts, the latter having been built after the Stacked version was finalized.
FINAL TEMPLATES
After the single-host template design was finalized, I rebuilt it in Adobe Express, importing a few custom shapes from Illustrator like the curvilinear line and a few shapes to create the masking effect seen on the single-host templates. I then adjusted the design to accommodate two or three hosts.
Lastly, I created an additional set of templates in RS&H’s primary blue brand color, to allow for a bit more visual distinction between episode announcement posts when viewed adjacent to one another.
MY TEAM
Brandon Pogrob (That’s Me)
Art Director
Julia DeFinis
Communications Coordinator
Jennifer Nix McGerald
Associate Director, Communications
Amanda Pye
Assoc. Director, Creative Services
Jennifer Stutts
SVP, Communications