[Mark]: Design is everywhere, but do we podcasters get it wrong? And when we do get it wrong,
[Mark]: what is the real life impact on the success of our show? That is what I'm gonna
[Mark]: talk about today here on the podcast Accelerate because it's a very, very important
[Mark]: subject. And you might be fooled into believing that we're just gonna talk about
[Mark]: graphic design. That is completely wrong. We are not, because design is so much more.
[Mark]: This is of course the podcast accelerator. I'm your host, Mark Asquith. And I just want
[Mark]: to thank, before we go any further, the wonderful Rich Graham, who recently sent
[Mark]: me, he sent me a little bit of beer money to say thank you for the podcast. So
[Mark]: Rich, I appreciate you, my friend. Thank you so much for doing that. And if you want
[Mark]: to be like Rich, and if you want to say, Marco, listen, I appreciate the podcast,
[Mark]: go and have a little meretti on me. You can do so at mark.live slash support. I
[Mark]: also want to thank. A couple of my most recent guests, Mike Willa and the wonderful
[Mark]: Dave Jackson. Two amazing previous episodes that we've just done very, very recently. And
[Mark]: we've just had fantastic feedback. In fact, the last three episodes. I feel like
[Mark]: people have got a heck of a lot from it was revenue lessons from big podcasts, which
[Mark]: I think is, again, a very important subject for the independent podcaster. And
[Mark]: we're sort of going to build on that today. We're going to build on that today because
[Mark]: design is tied to that. And also. The lessons that we learned from Mike Waller and
[Mark]: Dave Jackson in the previous two episodes have really been well received. So thank you
[Mark]: to everyone for the kind words on those episodes. I like mixing it up a little bit
[Mark]: with this podcast. I'm enjoying the fact that I'm doing interviews and doing some
[Mark]: of my own content and so on. So if you're enjoying the format, let me know on Twitter
[Mark]: at Mr. Asquith. And I say, if you want to be like rich and chukkas a little bit of
[Mark]: beer money, you can do so at mark.live slash support. Design. is everywhere. Design
[Mark]: is vital and you interact with design every single time you look at something, you
[Mark]: touch something, you move something, you enjoy something, you don't enjoy something,
[Mark]: you have a good experience, you have a bad experience. Everything in our lives in
[Mark]: 2023 and beyond is affected by design. Good design, bad design, indifferent design,
[Mark]: design that you don't notice because it's either very good or very bad and very
[Mark]: often you actually only do only notice. bad design and that's the sort of irony of
[Mark]: designers that great design just like simplicity goes unnoticed because you expect
[Mark]: good things we are well designed as human beings you know we don't we don't notice
[Mark]: that we're so well designed but we are and that's fine you know we have expectations
[Mark]: of what we are as beings we've got the two arms we've got the two legs we've got the
[Mark]: head we walk in a certain way and you know we don't notice unless something is different
[Mark]: okay and that's the point that I want to get to today is that design is everywhere.
[Mark]: All right. And there's a few misconceptions I want to just bash. There's some, I guess,
[Mark]: some thoughts that I want to give you about what you should be focusing on when it
[Mark]: comes to design. Now, I'm not going to tell you how to build cover art. I'm not
[Mark]: going to tell you how to design things. This is a mindset that I want to teach you
[Mark]: and talk to you about because it's something that I've always had, I've always had a design
[Mark]: oriented mindset, even though I didn't realize I had for a long, long time until I
[Mark]: really got into business. And even now, I know I drive some of our graphic designers
[Mark]: and our user interface designers crazy because I'm a bit of a stickler. I'm a bit
[Mark]: of a stickler for good design. You know, I don't, bad design stands out. I'd rather
[Mark]: you didn't notice that Captivate was well designed, but you never had any problems.
[Mark]: You didn't have any friction. You just somehow it felt easy and you didn't quite know
[Mark]: why. Like that's the ultimate. Okay. That's design. doing its job. So let's think
[Mark]: about design for podcasting. Design for podcasting generally takes or is generally
[Mark]: considered to just be graphic design. All right. And that's the first mistake that
[Mark]: people make. So design is very often commoditized. Graphic design in particular,
[Mark]: we've got amazing tools like Canva that you can knock up some cover art. Really nicely
[Mark]: done cover art within Canva within a few minutes. You can do that. I did that only
[Mark]: this week. for a new podcast that I'm putting together with some friends. And I did
[Mark]: it. It's good. Is it professional enough? Yes. Does it tick the boxes and will it stand
[Mark]: out in the directories? Yes. Did it cost much? No, it didn't. And this is, I think,
[Mark]: the first mistake that people make when it comes to design and then, you know, the
[Mark]: sub niche of graphic design. Just because Canva is free doesn't mean that design is cheap.
[Mark]: OK, let me say that again. Just because things like Canva are free, doesn't mean that
[Mark]: design is cheap. Because all of these templates that are within Canva that allow
[Mark]: people that aren't designers, you know, you, me, and people that aren't designers,
[Mark]: tools like that allow people to democratize design and to access good design and to just
[Mark]: mildly customize it to look good, guess what? They are powered by a very expensive
[Mark]: designers. So design is a skill, it's a talent, it's a craft, it's something that
[Mark]: you own. and that you should value. It's not cheap, all right? A lot of people
[Mark]: say, why does it cost so much to design a logo or design a website? Because you can't
[Mark]: do it. And if you think you can, you're probably wrong, all right? The point is, right,
[Mark]: I can move bricks around and I can mix mortar up and I can dig. And they're all the
[Mark]: constituent pieces of building a house. Yeah, and I can buy timber. I can buy glass
[Mark]: and glazing, I can buy window frames. But do you think the house that I build myself
[Mark]: using my own hands that aren't skilled in that way is gonna be livable, is gonna be
[Mark]: good enough? Of course it's not because everything's a skill and we cheapen design,
[Mark]: we commoditize design and we shouldn't do, all right? So just because design is accessible
[Mark]: using things like candle, which you should be using. I did mine on Cambly yesterday,
[Mark]: the new cover art. My podcast accelerator. Cover art is done on Canva. Now granted, it's
[Mark]: done using brand guidelines, which I'm not going to talk about today because it's
[Mark]: very different. It's done using brand guidelines so that I almost can't get it wrong.
[Mark]: And it's got good photography, so I almost can't get it wrong. But it's still physically
[Mark]: done on Canva. But as I said, really want to hit this home. Design is not cheap
[Mark]: and you shouldn't think about it as being cheap because the Canva design platform,
[Mark]: to use that as an example again, is powered by world class designers designing
[Mark]: those templates. Like they don't come from nowhere. They're not magic. All right.
[Mark]: So that's the first thing I want you to understand. Design is not cheap, but we
[Mark]: sadly commoditize it. You see all the time in the Facebook groups in podcasting,
[Mark]: why does it cost this much to get a cover art? Well, you either have bad cover
[Mark]: art, you either use a template and understand it's probably gonna be from a template and
[Mark]: look templated, or you get someone to do it. And if you get someone to do it, they
[Mark]: deserve pain. So don't be an asshole. when it comes to paying people or something
[Mark]: like that. I would hate for someone to, why do I have to pay a subscription fee
[Mark]: to get your premium content? You know, you would think, well, of course you bloody
[Mark]: do, because this is what I do, look at all the work I put in. So don't be a dick
[Mark]: when it comes to design, all right? Don't cheapen design just because you think
[Mark]: it's easy or think it's cheap or well, it's easy. Look at that, that can't have taken
[Mark]: long. It's only a few lines on the screen. Well, you go and do them then. And that's the
[Mark]: point, you can't do it that well. So. Graphic design is what we normally think of
[Mark]: as design when it comes to podcasting. But what I want you to really understand is
[Mark]: that design touches everything. All right. I walked through a door. This is an
[Mark]: analogy from a good friend of mine, Kyle Wilkinson, who runs one of the best design
[Mark]: agencies in the UK and beyond. He has done all my branding. He has done, I've worked
[Mark]: with him for years. He's done an agency with him. He's one of the finest in the business.
[Mark]: He genuinely is one of the best designers, not only in England, but I believe in the world
[Mark]: is fantastic at what he does. All right. And he always talks to me about this idea that
[Mark]: design is everything. Okay. And you walk through a door and guess what? That handle
[Mark]: somewhere, somehow, not only the concept of a handle working, but that physical handle
[Mark]: that you've got, the aesthetics of it, they've all been, all that's been designed.
[Mark]: It's been designed. The hinges have been designed. The door has been designed.
[Mark]: The mechanism, do we walk in, do we walk out? Do we open inward? Do we open outward?
[Mark]: Does it slide? Is it a bifold? All of that has been designed for different use cases
[Mark]: so that we don't notice it. just a door, but it works. And it goes the same for podcasting,
[Mark]: all right. Bad design stands out, okay. Design in your podcast should be considered
[Mark]: across the board. Yes, graphic design is very important, but you might have heard
[Mark]: the phrase sound design. I design my sound. I design, I've designed my audio. I've
[Mark]: designed not for this show, but some of the sound effects that we use in other shows.
[Mark]: I've designed. the experience and if you take that upper level, so go to shows like
[Mark]: what Wondry does with the business walls and even things like the news agents, the new
[Mark]: show which is by us here at Global, UK's biggest podcast in the news criteria and
[Mark]: it's the sound design is very well done. So we cut clips into it, we don't cut clips
[Mark]: into it. The design has been considered and we don't notice it as listeners. We just
[Mark]: think, well, of course that's there. Of course that clip is there because they contextualize
[Mark]: that clip. And then they talk. about that clip and so obviously they were going
[Mark]: to play the clip. But we, so we don't think about it, but someone has, someone's
[Mark]: considered that. All right. We also need to think about user experience design.
[Mark]: Okay. So how do I interact as a new listener with your podcast? Okay. Have you
[Mark]: got a good trail? That's very obvious. Are you naming your titles? Are you typing
[Mark]: your title, writing your titles in a good way? There was a fantastic podcast that
[Mark]: I really love. The golf podcast that I tweeted about this a few months ago. And
[Mark]: their titles were shocking. Like it said, such and such podcast with such and such
[Mark]: host, episode such and such. And then the guest and the subject was like at the end
[Mark]: of the episode title. So on Apple podcasts, on Spotify, in my car and whatever, I had no
[Mark]: idea what that episode was about. And it was a big podcast. So I tweeted them, I
[Mark]: said, look, listen, Timmy, here's a screenshot. I'm struggling like heck with this.
[Mark]: I wanna listen to your back catalog, but I don't know if I'm listening to Butch
[Mark]: Harmon or Bubba Watson or Nelly Corder. I've got no idea. can please name them like
[Mark]: this. And guess what they did, their producers went through and they changed all
[Mark]: the back catalog. That's we're in the back and said, thank you, it's much, much better.
[Mark]: So that's an experience design, even to do with things like your membership, so
[Mark]: you know your, we talked about a couple of episodes ago, how to design a paid subscription
[Mark]: and to sell things through your podcast, whether it's fixed price sponsorships, whether
[Mark]: it's getting tips like I got from Rich and Drew. or whether it is selling your memberships,
[Mark]: your bonus content, your exclusive content, your windowed content, whatever that might
[Mark]: be. That experience has to be designed. And when we designed that system, that platform
[Mark]: into Captivate, we did a lot of that thinking for you. But how do you word the benefits
[Mark]: in your membership? How do you deliver those? A great example of this is when we do
[Mark]: things like with Spark of Rebellion, which is that Star Wars show. When people sign
[Mark]: up to our membership for whatever it is, a few bucks a month, we send them out with
[Mark]: sticker, a Sparkle Rebellion sticker. And we could just do that, but instead we write
[Mark]: a handwritten note saying, thank you. And it's part of the experience which has been
[Mark]: designed. Okay. So design touches everything in your podcast. Yes, the graphics, yes, your
[Mark]: website, but it's also the experience. You need to design the experience that you
[Mark]: give to people. You need to design the experience. that goes alongside your membership
[Mark]: options and your tipping options. You need to design the experience for your guests.
[Mark]: What does that look like? Do you send production notes like we do? I always send
[Mark]: production notes out. I plan them episodes using Captivate and I send production notes
[Mark]: by just exporting the PDF from Captivate which is what it's intended to do. Do you do
[Mark]: that? Is that guest experience well designed? Will they remember that? Will it
[Mark]: stick out? Will they understand that is a good experience? Because they probably
[Mark]: won't. But they'll definitely know if they have a bad experience. If the guest turns
[Mark]: up and they say, well, what are we talking about? I don't know, what do you think? We
[Mark]: got any talking points? Well, that's sort of your job as the host. Oh, sorry, I
[Mark]: forgot to tell you, I've got to finish after 15 minutes because I've got such and
[Mark]: such. No, no, no. Set all the expectations up front, design that experience, all right?
[Mark]: So that is super important. Design everything. within your podcast from your graphics to your
[Mark]: sound design to your guest experience to your user experience, your listener experience,
[Mark]: everything. The way that you write your show notes has to be well designed. Everything,
[Mark]: design touches everything. What can you do today? Can you do anything with this?
[Mark]: Can you implement better design without spending any money? Well, yes, you can. Now,
[Mark]: like I said, we don't want to commoditize design. Just think this through before you
[Mark]: sort of run off and do anything. I want you to just stop now and think about what I'm
[Mark]: about to say. Just because we can get things done cheaply doesn't mean that it's
[Mark]: commoditized. So the graphic design, like I said at the beginning, just because
[Mark]: you use Canva doesn't mean that design is cheap. That's just a tool that gives you
[Mark]: templates from designers who are highly talented and who have been paid a lot of money
[Mark]: to do those designs. The money still changed hands, it wasn't you that was doing
[Mark]: the paying. But remember cheap does not equal commoditized. Commoditized does not
[Mark]: equal cheap. And when I say commoditized, what I mean is people take it for granted.
[Mark]: So what I don't want you to think when I say this next thing is that... It's easy
[Mark]: or you should take it for granted. All I'm about to say is that you don't have to
[Mark]: spend a pile of money doing it. All right, so let's forget graphic design. Let's
[Mark]: think about other things. Guest design, the experience. Do you have to spend any money
[Mark]: on that? No. But you've got to spend time thinking about it. OK, just sit down,
[Mark]: grab a cup of tea, write down a process, a flow, design the experience for your guests.
[Mark]: What is the pre-booking experience? What is The post-booking experience, what's
[Mark]: the interview experience, what's the post-interview experience, all right? Design
[Mark]: that out and then you've got it as a standard operating procedure. What is your
[Mark]: episode design process? How do you do that? What's your intro, what's your outro?
[Mark]: What is the middle bit? What is your flow per episode? Because it's not good enough
[Mark]: to wing it anymore. There's too many podcasts now for you to wing it. Other people
[Mark]: will do your thing better if you don't do it well, okay? So... All of this just takes
[Mark]: thinking time, it just takes a mindset, it just takes prioritizing focus. It doesn't
[Mark]: take money, but that's not to say that it should be taken for granted, all right?
[Mark]: Just because you don't pay for something doesn't mean that it is not valuable, all right?
[Mark]: That's the misnomer of free when people give... That's why we don't have a freemium
[Mark]: product at Captivate, because people take free for granted. They do. They've got
[Mark]: no skin in the game, so why would they care? They're not going to bother. It's not
[Mark]: a business model that is for us. So think that through, all right? How can you
[Mark]: design every part of your podcast from all of the experience to the visuals, to the
[Mark]: audio? Where do you need to put a bit of money? Well, maybe you need to put a bit
[Mark]: of money into graphic design or to graphic design software like Canva. Do you need to
[Mark]: spend money on your episode design or your sound design flow? Probably not really.
[Mark]: To your guest experience design, no. But I want you to think through the fact that
[Mark]: design touches everything. because not enough people think like that. And if you can
[Mark]: do that, you'll stand out. The biggest shows, if you go and look at the top charts,
[Mark]: they're well-designed in every single aspect. They're calls to action, but well-designed.
[Mark]: Their graphics are well-designed. Their listener flow, so the format of the episode
[Mark]: and the way that they guide people through the episode is well-designed. The news agents,
[Mark]: go and listen to it. It's a great example. Business wars. great example, all right? You
[Mark]: can stand out from your crowd, all right? We talk about niching down and focusing on
[Mark]: just your core audience, but the sad fact is there are enough podcasts now where
[Mark]: it doesn't matter really what competition, sorry, what niche you're in. You will have
[Mark]: competition. It doesn't matter what niche you are in. There are enough podcasts
[Mark]: in the world that you will have competition now. You can stand out by designing every facet
[Mark]: of your podcast. So take some time to do it. It matters, it will help, and it will
[Mark]: set you up for success because once you've done it, you really don't that often
[Mark]: need to redo it. So spend a bit of time up front doing it today. It will help you to
[Mark]: stand out. But let me know how you get along at Mr. Asquith on Twitter or X, whatever
[Mark]: we're calling it these days. Let me know how you get along. And as I say, if you
[Mark]: love the show, if it helps you, feel free, a little bit of beer. over at mark.live
[Mark]: slash support. And until the next time, much love, keep doing what you do and just
[Mark]: keep publishing, keep providing for your audience because they enjoy it and they
[Mark]: need it, all right? So until the next time, take it easy. Adios for now.