What Makes Good Podcast Artwork in 2024?
Hey, everybody, and welcome to Podcast Workflows, the show that provides insights into how to improve your podcast systems and workflows, allowing you to create and grow a high-quality podcast by showing you how to best spend your limited time. My name's Joe Casabona, and today I want to talk about podcast artwork. And I wanna start with a story.
One of my favorite scenes from Scrubs happens in Season 3 Episode 1. Sarah Chalke's character, Dr. Elliot Reid, is sitting on her bed reflecting on the fact that she gets walked all over at work, and she decides to do something about it. With Tom Petty's American girl playing in the background, she wrecks her room. She changes her look. She goes back to the hospital much more confident, and as a result, she's much more respected. The confidence in her appearance matched the confidence she wanted to convey to her colleagues and patients.
I have a confession to me. I hate my artwork, my podcast artwork specifically for my podcast, How I Built It. It's gone through a few iterations over the years, something super basic based on my first book's cover was the first one. Then there was one with my photo on it that didn't do particularly well. And now the current cover which was designed by Design Pickle during a pretty full rebrand during 2020. But I don't think this artwork really conveys what the show is about anymore. Sure. You build things with hammers, and the show is called How I Built It. And the hammer logo is pretty ubiquitous across my sites and brand at this point, though I don't think it's inextricably associated with my show. But a lot has changed since then, since 2020, since the show's inception in 2016. A lot has changed in the podcast landscape generally as well as in How I Built It specifically.
I used to interview WordPress developers on how they built plugins. Today, I'm not talking about WordPress or Web Development at all. I'm talking to busy solopreneurs and giving them actionable advice on how to save time in their business. So it's time to reevaluate the artwork and possibly the name. That's a whole other story, though.
The first question I need to answer is, what makes good podcast artwork? It's something I've been thinking about for over a month on and off in preparation for this episode. Is it akin to book covers? What about YouTube thumbnails? I think it's a little more complicated than that.
Podcast artwork is usually displayed on a small screen, and you're confined to a square. You have fewer options than a landscape YouTube thumbnail or book covers, which come in countless different sizes. It's a limited simple canvas that needs to convey a clear message. In fact, when I posed the question, what makes podcast artwork good to ChatGPT, that's the first thing it said. The design should be clear and straightforward. Considering that podcast thumbnails are often viewed on small screens, intricate details can be lost. A simple, bold design makes your podcast more recognizable and accessible.
I'm glad the will of the source material took us there first. But I also decided to ask social media, and here are some of the good answers that I got:
Trish Holder says, “The artwork should be eye-catching and visually appealing, but it should also be relevant to the podcast content.”
Michael Bickett says, “A title or logo that is recognizable in a small thumbnail, thematically appropriate design or color palette to the genre of the show and not too busy or cluttered.”
And user famousengravy on Threads said, “I'm not sure if great art pulls you in, but I do know bad art deters. If your art is amateurish, I assume you're not putting effort elsewhere into making a good podcast.” Not being bad is more important than being good. I think that's a very poignant point.
I also asked a few podcast friends. My friend, Matt Medeiros, host of many podcasts, said this, “In my opinion, I'd say it depends on the type of show. If it's something in the business education news category, make sure the logo or podcast name cannot be missed. If you're trying to evoke a certain feeling, having more creative artwork can set the mood.”
Neil Veglio, a monetized podcaster and podcast producer, brought an interesting perspective. He says, “Conveying problem, personality, and provision all in one simple image. It should work without any words added.”
I think it's important to have the title in there since you don't know where people are seeing the art, and some platforms can jank up the positioning of the title in relation to the artwork. But ideally, you want maybe 3 to 5 words max.
The no-words criteria is interesting to me. As podcasters, words are how we express ourselves. But he's right that words can take up an unnecessary amount of space, especially when the artwork will likely be accompanied by plenty of words.
Arielle Nissenblatt, Founder of Earbuds Collective and community team member at Descript, shares an illuminating story about the importance of artwork.
“I recently came across artwork for a podcast about creativity. It was a solo-hosted podcast, and the host of the show was sharing tips for creators. I think they were Digital Creators. And you would think that that would be sort of like a happy, upbeat, optimistic show, but the cover art was dark and it looked solemn and there was a shadow over this guy's face. And then I hit play on the show and the show actually was upbeat and happy and creative and it did not reflect the artwork.”
The artwork set some expectations that the show didn't deliver on. And her takeaways based on this experience?
“So I think when you are creating the podcast cover for your podcast, make sure to ask a few people to audit your artwork before your show goes live. Make sure you ask, what do you think this show is about? What tones do you think are going to be evoked within the show based on the cover art alone? And if there is a discrepancy between what they answer and the actual tone of your show, it might be worth going back to the drawing board, and making sure that your artwork reflects the tone, the scope, the concepts that are discussed within your show.”
Finally, and ultimately what got me thinking about this was a recent episode Jay Clouse did of Creator Science where he said this.
“I also recommend in your title and thumbnail, avoid using your name and face. Because in podcasting, this is the hardest medium to grow. Your name and face is interesting to people who already know you. It means nothing to people who don't know you. So if you're trying to get new listeners, the dominating package of the show, the title, and artwork with your name and face do nothing to a new listener. You're much better off titling the show something that's related to the unique differentiated premise of the show. Let me know as a listener why I should care, and why I would wanna listen. That should be in the title and backed up in the artwork.
And remember, your artwork in podcasting is so small in so many places. You don't need to be intricate. You need to say, what is the one thing I wanna emphasize in this artwork when it's at its smallest and make that the majority of the artwork. This show, it's mostly text. On the regular show artwork, you just see the name. And even though I'm probably gonna redo that artwork in 2024, it's still gonna be focused on the name.”
I've been bullish on no one cares about your name. But in trying to mimic the psychology behind YouTube thumbnails that people are drawn to faces, I've been recommending to hosts that they use their faces. But going back to my earlier point, podcast artwork is not a YouTube thumbnail. With a thumbnail, you can include a face and still have room to get your overall point across. You don't have that luxury in podcast artwork.
This is all wonderful feedback, but it's very nebulous. So can we turn it into something cohesive and actionable? Well, the thing is podcast art is just that, it's art. Saying do these things to make the perfect artwork is like saying paint these things to make the perfect painting. There's a lot of subjectivity in podcast artwork.
That said, there are a few anecdotal tips we can derive from what I found. The first is bad artwork deters. One thing I heard repeatedly was good artwork won't necessarily get people to subscribe, but bad artwork will deter people from listening. After all, as Famous and Gravy said, you're not putting effort into this one time asset. And if you're not doing that, why should we think you're putting effort into an ongoing show? This also speaks to the wider trend that there's just more quality shows out there. You can't just throw a podcast together, upload it, and expect to get listeners anymore.
Podcasts take time and effort, and people want to know that they aren't wasting their time. Good artwork is most people's first impression of your podcast and your first chance to say, I promise you're not wasting your time.
Number two is you should match the art to the tone of the show. This came up multiple times. What's the vibe of your show, and does the artwork match? Arielle told a great story about how the artwork didn't match the vibe of the show she ended up listening to. And maybe that didn't deter her. If you know Arielle, you'll know that not a lot deters her from listening to podcasts. But I bet that deterred other listeners who were looking for something upbeat and didn't think they'd get it based on the brooding artwork.
One of the reasons I hated the critically acclaimed movie No Country For Old Men is because I came away from the trailer thinking I'd get an action movie, and that's what 21-year-old me wanted to see. Instead, I got a tense commentary on good versus evil and how disillusionment in a changing world can happen to the best of us. It was heavy stuff, and I wasn't expecting it, nor did I want it. Though at 38, I think a rewatch is in order.
As you consider your podcast artwork, think about the tone of the show and what expectation you're setting for the listener. Your face in black and white, shadowy and intense might look cool. But if your show is upbeat and happy, you're sending out the wrong vibes.
Number three, another common refrain in the feedback I got was to make it clean and eye-catching. Try to make it stand out in a sea of other artwork. Jay said to pick one thing to emphasize. Neil said you shouldn't need any words besides the name of the show and definitely don't include your name or the word podcast.
In a separate comment, Michael said we don't need to include microphones on the artwork anymore. I agree with this 100%. People will know your podcast is a podcast. We don't need to include the word podcast in the name or on the artwork. Instead, pick colors and images that evoke emotion, the emotion you want to evoke in your episodes. Look at logos to see how they communicate a message with simplicity. FedEx is a great example. Standout colors and the perfect use of white space between the e and the x make an arrow as if to show that we help move you forward.
So taking everything we just covered, what should we do to make great podcast artwork?
In a recent livestream, I actually went through the process of creating new artwork for my show. But here's what I recommend. Much like your podcast should have a mission statement, your podcast artwork should have a single theme, focus, or emphasis. Maybe it's action, or perhaps it's freedom. Pick a word or a couple of words and run with that. You should also consider the color scheme based on that theme, the emotions you want to evoke, and the competition. Look at what colors fit with your theme, have a few different colors. We know that colors evoke certain emotions, red for anger, blue for sadness, etcetera. Then look at podcasts, other podcasts in your category on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Look at what they're all doing versus what could stand out.
In the livestream, I did this. I looked at podcasts that rank for the word solopreneur because that's what I want to do. I looked at what all the other artwork was doing, and I determined how I could stand out.
Number three is font choice. Font choice has always been super hard for me, but you need to pick a font for your show's name. And it should be a bold display font, something big that's easily readable even when it's really small.
Finally, pick some sort of imagery. This could be a photo, though you'll want to fade a lot of it into the background or a solid color. Or even better, it could be a simple graphic, something to help pull together your theme so that people see the artwork and feel they know exactly what your show is about.
In the live stream, I ended up focusing on an hourglass with all of the sand in the bottom of the hourglass and arrows pointing up through the middle going back into the top. Hopefully, this signifies to the listener or potential listener that I'm trying to gain back time for them.
The last consideration you might want to make is how well does your podcast artwork translate into episode artwork. Is there a common theme you can keep in the show's art that becomes a thread for each episode's art? This will be important to leverage custom episode artwork which is supported by most podcast players.
I wish I could tell you to do these simple things to get good podcast artwork. But the truth is that it's going to be different for everyone. Mess around in Canva or Photoshop. Or if you can, hire a designer to help you. And no matter what, Arielle’s advice, once you have something, is crucial. Get feedback, then iterate.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Podcasting Workflows. My name's Joe Casabona. If you want to get tips and articles like this delivered directly to your inbox, you can head over to [podcastworkflows.com/join] to sign up for my free newsletter. And if you want a behind-the-scenes look as well as bonus episodes of the work I'm doing in the podcast space, you can become a member of my other podcast, How I Built It, to get the pro show ad-free. All of that can be done in the description for this episode or over at podcastworkflows.com/join.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time. I can't wait to see what you make.
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