Podcasts and Partnerships

CNN serves a wide array of topics, discussions and interests. One of the pain points that comes with such a vast range of topics is consistency with album artwork and the treatment of logo, color, structure and typography.

This project explored CNN’s podcasts on a holistic level, looking at the range of podcast artwork teams would create for existing and upcoming shows, and finding the common threads of which to tie together the look and feel to still feel very CNN, but also cohesive altogether.

The result of these explorations was a template that all team members would begin to use as we launch newer shows. The artwork would feature a large crop of the main topic or interest, with a CNN logo stylized in either black or white, depending on the contrast against the background color. The headline uses CNN Sans Bold, a Helvetica-like font that maintains the look and feel of the brand, while departing away from the common logo and red and black that is more commonly seen.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Some explorations also included some liberties of the header and logo. Among the shows, many include newer shows that has its own dedicated logo for the show, that take a higher priority to use instead of the Sans Bold, since that is synonymous with the show.

 
 
 

02 | Partnership with Snapchat

 
 

CNN partnered with Snapchat to deliver news in easily digestible, 10 second videos intended towards a younger and increasingly news-consuming audience. My main role was a hybrid between graphic and motion design. I collaborated with our New York editorial team on the best ways to visualize each story, designed and animated them in After Effects with the limitation of 10 seconds. I was able to explore different styles and ways of story-telling visually through this medium, and became extremely comfortable with designing for motion.

One of the challenging areas of this project was figuring out a solution to fit a news story into a 10-second time frame while making sure that the reader will get all of the context within a 3-second time frame. This was my first project diving deep into motion graphics and storytelling, but it was also the most creative project I had the opportunity to be a part of. Composing music, photography, visual elements, along with finding the correct header type, body type, and understanding pacing and appropriate mood for each story was something that required a lot of experimentation, on your feet thinking and creative storytelling.

My team and I produced a total of 80-100 "Snap Stories" in a week, with mini teams dedicated to an AM shift and a PM shift. The fast-paced environment of this project allowed me to push my creative boundaries and finding the appropriate language for more pleasant and somber stories.