Covers for the first three New Scientists podcast series
In the early 2020 while working at Right Angles I had the pleasure of creating three cover artworks for The New Scientist’s podcasts – Weekly, The Big Interview and Huge If True.
It was exciting and interesting to try and fit in the podcasts visuals to their branding without having their design guidelines.
/ TEAM
Kathryn Brazier, Art Editor at New Scientist
Oliver Guillou, Podcast Producer at Right Angles
/ MY SCOPE
Designed cover artworks for New Scientist Weekly, Huge If True and The Big Interview podcasts.
/ YEAR
2020
/ CHALLENGE
Creating a distinct yet consistent looking artwork without design guidelines
The artworks had to be created without the design guidelines to base them on. Therefore, I worked closely with The New Scientist art editor to ensure that the podcast branding worked with the rest of the companies image.
/ COLOURS
Expanding the palette to create recognisable branded designs
The New Scientist creates content on a variety of topics that are differentiated by coloured labels on the content cards.
Therefore, at the beginning of the project we agreed that all three podcast covers will feature distinct colours to help differentiating them on their website and on other podcast platforms.
To select the colours to use, I laid out all the section colours from their website. After identifying new colours that could expand their palette, I combined the ones that reflected podcast concepts best in groups of three to see if they would also work together.
/ TYPOGRAPHY
Choosing a bold font that stands out in various sizes
I had the freedom to explore various options of typefaces to use for the podcast covers, so I based my choices on the typefaces that are currently used for their logos.
We agreed to move forward with Enzo, which is the typeface that is used for their main logo. Enzo is bold and unique, therefore it stands out well when used in various sizes across the podcast platforms and social media.
/ ILLUSTRATIONS
Minimal linear shapes combined with bold blocks of colour for a scalable design
We wanted to use podcast cover art that is memorable and scalable, so it would be easy to create new illustrations for any series in the future.
Therefore, taking inspiration from the illustrations used on The New Scientist website, I opted for a minimal style of illustration featuring linear shapes with bolder blocks of colour.
To create a strong link between all the illustrations, I repeated a pattern of bold colour with a group of inverse coloured icons on it.
/ THE TAKEAWAY
The design style is being re-used for new podcast series
I’m grateful I had the opportunity to contribute to this production. It’s a brilliant listen and it makes me very proud to see how well it’s been doing ever since its release.
It’s also great to see that they’ve continued using the same style of illustration for the new podcast series of Weekly Extra and Escape Pod, which means that my effort to make the designs scalable has worked.
Auguste Greiciute 