Pivoting the Creative Risk podcast from the studio to remote production
Photos by Rengim Mutevellioglu and Gili Benim.
The Challenge: Leveraging the Insights of Veteran Content Creators
Picter is a global contest submission and creative review platform. But before the days of their software startup, the Picter team’s roots as a creative collective were in the publication of the now legendary art photography magazine DER GREIF. Against this backdrop, the Picter team had an acute awareness of the value of a strong content play.
Wanting to communicate at a similar level of quality and sophistication in a time based medium, as Picter’s Creative Director and Head of Content, I developed a multifaceted episodic content proposal that included video and podcast options. Preferring the podcast medium for its international flexibility, I set about conceiving a format that would entice our audience of photographers, designers and marketers with true stories from other creative professionals.
Little did I know my first two guests would be the last ONES I would INTERVIEW face to face.
A Show Designed for 2020
Apt for the times in which it was produced, I named the podcast Creative Risk. I wanted to show a side of creative life seldom explored – not just the risk taking of individuals that have wild creative ideas – but the unique personal risks that women, people of color, and people from the LGBTQIA+ community face when doing any creative work whatsoever. Looking back at how the events of 2020 unfolded, with the Black Lives Matter movement swelling in reaction to the brutal murder of George Floyd, this stance makes the show a time capsule of a unique moment in history.
Working with Picter’s Co-Founder and Head of Design Leon Kirchlechner, we crafted an elegant identity for the show that fused organic and digital elements – hinting at a sense of both playfulness and urgency.
While the plan was to conduct interviews out of the Emmy Award winning NYC sound studio Silver Sound, plans changed rapidly in the wake of the pandemic. We pivoted to a fully remote work from home production overnight. Nonetheless, the cast for our first season was a stellar collection of creative risk takers.
From left to right: Art & Photography Director Molly Gottschalk, Creative Director and Palette Group Founder Nate Nichols, Photojournalist Tasneem Alsultan, Global Executive Creative Director Jayanta Jenkins, and Designer Zipeng Zhu.
The Content Plan
We knew that launching a successful podcast from scratch would mean executing a content plan across different channels beyond Spotify, iTunes and Sound Cloud. Each episode was packaged with multiple visual and video assets for social, as well as an accompanying blog post on the company website that served as both show notes and bonus content. Despite going remote and losing our photo/videography team in the process, we were able to enlist our guests to self-tape the materials we needed to keep our content plan on track.
Making the Stories Pop with Sound & Music
Inside the episodes themselves, rich audio storytelling techniques were used whenever possible, helping to make lives of the guests more multidimensional. Whenever possible, source audio from guests was incorporated, from excerpts of previous campaign work, to music tracks, to field recordings. These were not simple profile pieces – this was narrative audio storytelling. Offering creative direction to the seasoned Italian audio engineer and composer Alberto Di Angeli, a theme song and trailer were born.
Rolling out the Show
For the fans of a podcast who want to do a deep dive into the topics in a given episode, a show is only as good as its show notes. I collaborated with our content writing team to create long form posts on the company blog, adding photos and links to references wherever possible. And for the first two episodes of the season we had our guests write guest posts as bonus content.
The First Season / The Last Season
With steady audience growth adding hundreds of subscribers with every episode, Creative Risk was exceptionally well received by both the Picter team and the Picter audience. Unfortunately, like many initiatives started in 2020, the podcast met a premature end due to the unforeseen financial squeeze of the pandemic. Nonetheless, the show exemplified what the Picter in-house creative team was capable of when operating at the top of its game. Despite formidable macro-environmental challenges, the initiative showcased the team’s commitment to quality and style. Have a listen!
Credits
Creative Director / Head of Content: Gabriel Shalom
Executive Producer / Host / Story Editor: Gabriel Shalom
Original Music, Mix & Mastering: Alberto Di Angeli
Head of Design: Leon Kirchlechner
Photographers: Rengim Mutevellioglu & Gili Benim