Switch it on and off

Try out different design directions

Some of our favorite podcast cover art

We brought on our friend, and Art Director Luke Harris (Apple, Playboy.com), to give the show a face-lift. We looked to our favorite podcasts for inspiration — Startup, Invisibilia, NYTimes Magazine, You’re The Expert, Ideo Futures and Love + Radio. They all had something in common: bold colors with large text that “popped,” even on a small screen.

Here’s what we wanted our logo to do:

Make musicology fun, Embrace the youthfulness of pop Create a consistent design language for the show.

But immediately we bumped into fundamental challenges with the brand. The show’s name was lopsided: one long word “Switched” followed by two short words “on Pop,” with an over-emphasis on the final world. Plus, the piano felt kind of obvious. The hardest part of all was to make it work across multiple sites we don’t control: iTunes, SoundCloud, Twitter and other people’s blog. All this considered, Luke drafted four design directions:

1. Pop up what we got

This is one of a couple variations on the “piano” motif. The color is reversed on the keys (think Harpsichord) so that the logo becomes bolder. “Switched On” is set in Museo Sans Rounded Bold, which was an attempt to match the round edges of “POP.”

2. Stay forever young

This direction was inspired by the “popular” nature of pop music. The slant is a reference to how musicians see their name on marquees. This direction more closely resembles the audience that listens to pop music: young people. The hand drawn text feels like a doodle on a high school kid’s binder, in a good way.

3. High concept

This is a more conceptual direction. It is inspired by something Nate said on the “Carly Rae Jepsen” episode: what is the formula to making a hit? Formula has come up a lot in recent episodes as a theme. So this logo speaks to that idea of math and music.

4. Old and in the way

The known motif of musical notation, matches well with modern supporting text. It gives a bit of the old with the new. The font is Chamois, a bold typeface that had curves that paired well with musical notation. The two forms simply match. This one works really well at all sizes, and really “pops” against color.

Immediately, we knew Luke’s fourth try captured everything we wanted to project. It was bold, asserting that pop music can be taken seriously. It seemed to say that the way you analyze Bieber can be the same way you analyze Bach. And as much as we tried to be objective, we just really liked this design. It worked at all sizes, and the dotted half note was strong enough on its own to work as a favicon or gravatar. It just needed a little bit more fun. So Luke made minor tweaks to the logo and gave it the most “pop” color of all: Strawberry Bubblegum.