Hello, hello, everybody.
Looks like I'm live.
My timery timer just started.
I'm a little early because I'm getting back into the swing of live streaming.
So I don't have any music playing in the background right now, which I usually have.
But I'm on a little early to make sure everything is working as expected.
Thanks so much for being here.
Somebody's already watching, so thank you for that.
I appreciate that.
If you are tuning in, let me know where you're coming from and what brings you here.
While I check the stream in all of the many places where I'm streaming.
For those of you who may be tuning in, don't know why I just saw live stream pop up, then
I'm going to be talking about podcast artwork today.
I'm really excited and a little bit nervous because I haven't changed my artwork in a while.
And in writing this piece that I'm going to cover, that I'm going to cover first in this
live stream, I came to another conclusion, which makes me nervous.
So, okay, let's see.
Everything appears to be working.
I'm here.
Wow.
That's live captioning over on LinkedIn, which is exciting.
Okay, so I'm in all of the places.
Let's officially start this thing, right?
Yeah, here I am streaming on X.
And then, oh, gosh, the last thing I need to do, this is, I call this three minutes of
waffling.
Okay, great.
Comments are up.
Hey, everybody, welcome, welcome to the live stream.
You could be watching on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitch, or Twitter.
It still says Twitter.
Still says Twitter in the sidebar.
X whatever.
I'm really excited because it's been a while since I've done a live stream.
And I thought that this would be kind of the perfect return to doing live streams.
I in general like to build in public when I do live streams or work in public.
And since moving to the podcasting space, I don't feel like I've had a lot of opportunity
to do that.
I've prioritized some other things, but I really like live streaming and I want to make it
a bigger part of what I do here.
So a couple of housekeeping things.
I'm going to talk about this more in another episode, like in an episode of my podcast,
how I built it.
But I killed my membership.
And the other big thing I'm doing is kind of moving all of my content onto this YouTube
channel, the Joe Casaboni YouTube channel, the podcast workflows YouTube channel is now
just going to be for the podcast workflows podcast.
So lots of stuff going on.
And in the midst of it, I am now redesigning my artwork.
So if you are joining, let me know where you're coming from.
I will try, I will do my best to kind of cycle through comments here.
Anything on Twitch and YouTube gets sent to me anything from X or LinkedIn, I have to
go find.
So that's the other thing.
Also if you are watching on YouTube, I have super chats and super stickers enabled.
And I think it still blinks my lights.
I didn't test that part.
So if you want to send me a super chat or a super sticker and see if my light blinking
automation works when I get that, feel free.
So as I work through this, I'll also be answering questions.
So if you have any questions about podcasting in general, it doesn't just have to be about
artwork, put them in the chat and I will do my best to answer them as they come up.
So for now, let me get into kind of my thesis for this.
So yesterday I put out a piece called What Makes Good Podcast Artwork.
Honestly, this is something I've been thinking about for a long time.
I no longer like my podcast artwork.
Here it is.
It's fine.
It's got the logo, like the hammer logo that I've used since the beginning of when I started
podcasting.
But it just like it doesn't convey anything, right?
Like there's a cityscape in the background that I just thought would be cool kind of.
And we've got these lines, these kind of digital circle things that's supposed to show the
blend of technology and tools maybe.
And then it's got the name with Joe Casabona.
That doesn't matter.
Most people don't know who Joe Casabona is.
So this is something I actively advise my clients and students not to do.
And here I am doing it.
And so I just like, I don't like it.
It went through a bunch of iterations.
Maybe I can find those for you so you can kind of see like what they, what iterations
have happened.
But oh, we've got Leitra Tate.
I hope I'm saying that right.
Letra.
Let me know if I said that right.
Thanks for coming in and watching from New York.
We're in New York.
I grew up in Orange County.
So if you're from the city, you will say that's upstate.
But yeah, let me know.
Thanks for, thanks for being here.
So I'll try to bring up kind of, I think I have like versions of the old artwork that
I hate even more.
But maybe I don't.
I have a folder called old.
Let's see.
Yeah.
Okay.
Great.
So let's do this.
Let's get rid of that stream and then bring up this again.
So, oh, here we go.
This was the first one, right?
This was actually, I wrote a book in 2012 called Building WordPress Themes from Scratch.
It was for Rockable Press, which was part of the Envato Network.
It was my first ever book.
They paid me a flat fee for it, which I did because I knew that traditional publishers
wanted you to have publishing experience.
And so this would get me publishing experience and that helped, right?
I published four books after that.
But the cover was this hammer and this color actually.
And so I kind of borrowed the cover from the book for this podcast, which I started in
2016.
I had another podcast before that, but it was not good.
Sorry to all my friends, any of you, if any of you are watching.
That wasn't a very good podcast.
Let's see.
Oh, I love the comments that come from Twitch because they are all spam.
I don't know if I should even really stream on Twitch anymore, it doesn't matter.
So, oh, and actually, right, this is, again, friends, I'm getting my sea legs.
I'm coming back to streaming.
And so I'm trying to remember how all of this works, but I can put comments up here if you're
commenting on Twitch or YouTube.
So anyway, this cover was the first one.
Just basically the book cover.
And I want to say 20, oh, 20, 20.
I decided to change it because I read that.
I read that like faces matter.
And so I did this, I think my friend Brian helped me out with this, liked the font.
This did not do, this was not a good, this is not good artwork.
I feel like I lost listeners because of it.
It's probably not true, but I feel that way.
Leitra, Leitra, Leitra from Long Island.
Awesome.
I have a fear of mispronouncing names because I, well, because I podcast a lot and I want
to make sure I get the names right.
But I also taught in the classroom.
And so like the first day of class was just me butchering 60 to 75 students names more
or less.
So that was always fun.
Especially when people are like, it's whatever.
It's not whatever though.
It's your name, I want to say it right.
So thank you for that.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for coming from Long Island.
At the University of Scranton, lots of people were from Long Island when I went there.
It's a very popular Long Island school.
So anyway, this was the second piece of artwork.
And at some point I had like wordmarks.
Like that was terrible.
You could tell that I kind of did all of these myself in Canva.
This was my original setup.
And then eventually I started using Design Pickle.
And this was one of the things I had them do was create this new artwork for me.
And like I mean, based on the instruction and the direction and everything that I told
them to do, that was really good.
Right?
It's just like it's four years on.
And as I say down here, this doesn't really convey what the show is about anymore.
Like the show, if you haven't been listening to my podcast since the beginning, the show
originally started out with me interviewing WordPress developers, specifically developers
on how they built WordPress plugins.
So like how I built it was a very apt name, right?
But I'm not talking about that anymore.
And like three months after I launched my podcast, How I Built This with Guy Raz launched,
and I was like pretty stubborn, like I was here first.
But now I'm now with eight years or nine years of experience and wisdom.
I really want this show to stand on its own.
And so the artwork is one thing.
And then if you click foot, if you read this and you click footnotes, I'm also reevaluating
my name of the podcast.
So this is like breaking news, I haven't really shared this with a lot of people, but I'm
probably going to change the name too.
And I'm saying that because that's going to be important in the scheme of redesigning
the artwork.
Because like I'm going to use how I built it now.
I haven't landed on a name yet, but I want the artwork to work with the new name.
And again, I want to redesign the artwork today and then redesign it again when I have
a new name.
So I'm going to go ahead and start to work both ways.
And so we'll get to why that is.
I'm not going to read this whole article, but I do want to highlight some of the things
that people have said.
Maybe I'll just kind of scroll down.
Shout out to Ariel Nissenblatt.
Thanks for, she's like, you'll hear her in the podcast episode version of this.
But she shared this great story about how she came across a podcast that had like really
dark and brooding artwork.
And like she originally would have thought that the show was upbeat and then the artwork
made her think it wasn't.
And then she listened to it and it was.
So the story is, you know, make sure the art matches the tone.
I think that's maybe the most important thing.
It's something that a bunch of people mentioned throughout this, this article from feedback
that I got.
And then she also says, like, make sure you audit your artwork before it goes live.
Like what do you think the show is about?
What are the tones you're trying to evoke?
Which I thought was really good.
And then the whole thing that inspired this piece was Jay Klaus's episode of Creator Science
where he did Q&A.
And he points this out, right?
Your name and face is interesting, are interesting to people who already know you.
And I've been saying this for a long time about the name, right?
Like I would never call my podcast the Joe Casabona podcast because very few people,
relatively speaking, know who Joe Casabona is.
And so I like that he says that about the face too, because I've been kind of advocating
the opposite, trying to kind of recreate the YouTube magic.
But you know, he also says like, what's the one thing I want to emphasize in this artwork
when it's at its smallest because it's going to appear on small screens.
And so the big takeaways from this research, I would encourage you to read the whole article
over at PodcastWorkflows.com.
Is bad artwork deterred?
I heard that a lot.
Like I said, like, have you ever subscribed to a podcast because of the artwork?
And a bunch of people were like, no, but I've definitely skipped podcasts because of the
artwork.
So your artwork is your, most people's first impression of your show, so it should be good.
Match the art to the tone.
So you know, make sure that your artwork conveys the same thing your podcast conveys.
And in this episode here, or in this article here, I share a story about how I didn't like
old country, no country for old men.
I didn't like no country for old men because when I watched the trailer, I thought I was
getting, I thought I was getting a action movie.
And what I actually got was like this big social commentary on disillusionment and good
versus evil.
And I didn't like it because that's not what I was expecting, right?
It's a good movie.
It's a critically acclaimed movie, but I don't feel the trailer managed my expectations properly.
And the same thing could be true of your artwork, right?
And so, and then make it clean and eye catching.
I think the best thing you could do here is look at logos and see like how a good logo
conveys a message simply.
So that's a lot of really nebulous advice and art is art and it's very subjective, but
turning this into concrete advice and the stuff I'm going to do today in this live stream
is pick a word or a theme or a focus for the artwork and run with that.
Consider color, the color scheme, because the colors are going to convey emotion, right?
So pick some colors and then I would say like see what other artwork in your category on
like Spotify and Apple podcast is doing because you want your artwork to stand out.
And if everybody in your category uses the color yellow, you're not going to stand out.
And then font choice has always been super hard for me, but it should be a big bold font.
And another piece of advice from earlier in this article is don't have any words except
for the name of the podcast.
I think this is really important, right?
Others think with words, they share their thoughts with words.
And so this could be really hard, but I think it's important because you do have a very
limited amount of space and then pick some sort of imagery.
So could be a photo though, I don't think it should be a full photo or you should fade
most of the photo into the background or just pick a simple graphic, something to help pull
together your theme.
So we're going to work through all of this or as much as it is possible in the next 45
minutes or so.
The last thing I would say to consider is how well does your podcast artwork translate
into episode artwork?
Episode artwork is being highlighted in more and more apps and so it's really important
for you to consider that.
I think everybody should use episode artwork now because it's in Spotify and Apple podcast,
which is like the lion's share of listening apps.
And so as you create this podcast artwork, think about how can I make this into episode
artwork as well?
I know it's a tall order and I'm not a graphic designer, but let's see what we can do here.
So first I'll check if you have any questions or comments.
Let me know.
Again, a bunch of people have joined, so let me know where you're coming from, what you
want to know.
Say hello.
I'll put you up on the big screen.
And as a reminder, if I have super chat and super stickers enabled and if you want to
see, I think my lights will blink.
So if you're watching on YouTube, I think my lights will blink.
I haven't tested it in a while though.
So the first thing I want to do is show you just like this concept sketch here.
Kind of what I, this kind of hit me in like a fever dream yesterday.
You think I have a better way to do this?
This kind of hit me in like a fever dream yesterday and I had to like stop what I was
doing to draw it.
But you know, what you could see here is there's a clock that's like a sun with beams because
I think the theme of my podcast artwork is going to be save time.
It could be freedom.
And I guess something else worth sharing here, let's see if I can do this.
Something else worth sharing here is that I want to, can I do this?
Let's see.
No, that's not the right scene.
Oh yeah, there we go.
So something else I want to do here, I want to bring you over here for a minute so you
can read this.
But in coming up with a new name, I have a mission statement and an audience.
So you can see that, you know, I know that was like a very short, maybe I should set
up like a tripod over there so you can kind of see it like picture in picture.
But my target audience is busy solopreneurs, parents who want to spend less time in their
business and more time on whatever, right?
It doesn't have to be on their business, right?
Spend less time in your business, more time on your business.
It could be like spending time with family, right?
My whole goal for everything that I've done is so that I can knock off early and like
go to my kid's play or if my kid gets sick, I have the flexibility to, you know, miss
work without asking permission or something like that.
Like I don't want to feel beholden to anybody or anything and I want to be available for
my kids.
I was taking a much needed trip at the end of the week by herself at a B&B and I'm really
excited for her and I've set up my business in a way that I don't have, like it wasn't
a big thing for me to take a couple of days off.
And so that's why I have my business.
That's my goal as a solopreneur is to be able to be available for my family.
And so that's the kind of stuff that I'm teaching on my podcast now.
And that's the kind of thing that I want to convey in the artwork.
And so I sketched that out.
I thought maybe what I could do here is this the right scene?
Yeah, cool.
So this is my iPad and I have it up on this nifty stand here.
And I thought what I could do is excuse me, like as soon as this stream started, I got
like a catch in my throat.
I thought what I could do here is sketch some concepts.
So first I'm going to let's see if I can do this, I want to change to this.
So I think you can still hear me and let me know if you can, can or cannot hear me if
the audio cut out or any, I guess if the audio cut out, you're going to get a comment like
the audio cut out.
And I'm doing that so that I can play some stream beats while I sketch.
Hopefully.
This sounds good.
No, I don't like that.
Where's one?
There's one that's like chill vibes.
Let's see.
This one.
Yeah.
Okay, so I haven't gotten any comments that you can't hear me.
I'll just double check.
Let's test test.
Nope.
Sounds like there's no sound here.
Unless I'm going to be muted.
Oh yeah.
Twitch must have been muted.
Okay, cool.
So all right, let's do this.
I'm going to basically take this original drawing.
I'm using free form for this.
If you're wondering.
If I, yeah, great.
Okay.
seeing it like that.
Let's see.
There's like, there's some significance to
setting a clock's hands
to two o'clock, I think.
Because it looks like the clock is smiling,
is what people say.
Let's see.
Alright.
I guess I also don't know if, like, LinkedIn
will surface comment. I assume.
So I might,
I do like this concept a little bit,
and I'm thinking,
um, maybe like light or vague sunbeams,
or maybe I just make the clock yellow, right?
This is like, this is where like color scheme is important.
This might be like a silly concept too.
Like this could be too busy.
But I'd probably want,
yeah, yeah, this might be a silly concept.
It was like good in the moment,
and obviously there's no bad ideas in brainstorming.
But I think this could be, like, the thing we want to consider here
is what will this look like on a really small screen?
And it already appears to me that this is going to be too busy.
So I'll just,
I must have pressure turned on.
Okay, now I've built it.
So I'm not going to have my name.
I also thought about, like, doing a little Easter egg with the hammer,
because the hammer has been around for as long as the show,
but I don't think it's like inextricably part of my brand.
And obviously, like something I didn't mention here,
but something I'm considering as part of like the wider,
like, renaming of the show is there's going to be like a long lead time, right?
And again, if you want to follow along with that,
you can become a member of How I Built a Itslash Join.
That's like my premium podcast,
and I'll be sharing some behind the scenes stuff on that.
I will make it all public,
because like that's the whole like mission of podcast where it blows is like show podcasters how to do stuff.
But, you know, members will kind of get the ability to offer feedback
and like see things as they're happening.
So this, I don't hate this.
I don't hate this.
But if we look like what is,
is this conveying what I want it to convey, right?
I don't think so.
And what about like save time is the word or the phrase, right?
That's what we want to consider here.
And I, like, I guess if this clock looks clockier, right?
Like, maybe it has like little ticks for the seconds.
Like maybe then it'll look like a clock.
But if my goal is to like not use any words here,
then I'm going to have a hard time, I think, conveying this message.
So maybe, you know, maybe I want to do something.
Oh, my God.
I lost it.
I guess I probably just wanted to recreate the square.
Can you tell he's freeform a lot?
What happened?
Do you see what's happening here?
What is that?
I don't know what I really just did there.
I think I just created like a board inside of a board.
See, this is like one of the problems with freeform.
So I've heard.
I don't use this app that much.
Alright, so maybe one more concept before I jump into Canva.
I like the idea of a clock or time.
I like the idea of maybe a blue or yellow background.
So if we, we, that's big.
So maybe if we have something like this and then maybe we have like an hourglass.
How do we convey like maybe an hourglass being filled in reverse?
Right.
And then we have the name.
I'm not sure if it's black and yellow here.
Yeah, so maybe it's something like this.
We have like a couple of, couple of loose concepts.
I feel like the new name will definitely fit better with the artwork, whatever the new name is.
And I'm considering a lot of different, considering a lot of options.
Like there's like automated solopreneur as a name I was using for a while last year for like this limited run series I was doing as part of the podcast.
And I really feel like that conveyed the mission of the show.
And I'm just like a little bit worried that the word automate will scare people away.
Because it really is about putting systems and processes in place to win back your time.
So maybe, I mean, so maybe, maybe this.
This is so.
Maybe this is like an hourglass and then you have arrows going up.
Can I do this?
Can I make that happen?
And then maybe this is like, this is maybe a bolder color.
I like blue.
Maybe like pink would be better.
Pink or purple.
Well, I guess yellow and purple is like, I feel like people immediately think about the, the Lakers, right?
When you have purple and yellow.
Maybe pink.
And that looks terrible.
So, I'll fix this.
Maybe like that.
I feel like 80s Tastic.
I feel like I need to have the word solo per newer.
Like, so the solo per newer is my target audience, right?
And maybe we have little gears and like these things, right?
Like little textured background that can kind of like fade into the background, right?
And then the big focus is this kind of reverse hourglass.
Man, I really like that concept.
Let me know in the comment.
I'm not even checking comments.
I'm really into this.
Let me know in the comments if you like one of these.
Let's call this.
A and B.
Tell me they both suck.
My feelings won't be hurt.
Yeah, but this, I like, this is, I think it's something like this.
I like the idea of like the sun rising, right?
It's kind of what I was going for here in the, you can't see where I'm pointing.
Kind of where I'm going for here in A.
Where it's like dawn on like a new beginning, maybe, or time is resetting for like,
for your, for your business, right?
We're going to fix your business is kind of what I'm conveying here.
And then like the reverse hourglass, right?
That's more, if I can make this work.
And again, like big if like I'm going to be working in Canva and like maybe I'll like
concept this and then like high, like actually higher, like somebody who could do a good job.
But this is like, you've lost time in the hourglass.
Now you're, you're winning it back, right?
That's, that's what I'm thinking here for that concept.
So with that, let's, how are we doing on time?
Let's actually go into fix this.
So I can actually see the time here.
Let's go into Canva and see if we can make something happen here.
Check all, check each check all the things.
Okay.
And so here's the other thing, right?
First of all, I think with like a versus B here with a.
Yeah, like if I'm going to put the guest here, like I could probably like replace the sun with their headshot, maybe.
Maybe I could just replace the name of the show, but I don't really like that.
And then like with the hourglass, I can definitely replace the hourglass with just their headshot here.
Like maybe the title of the episode across the bottom.
So like B is probably a little bit better as far as flexibility goes because it's definitely more open.
And I do have the ability here to replace that a little bit more variably.
So, okay.
That was my last thought.
So let's do this.
Gosh, I'm sorry.
So I want to hide this sidebar here.
So if you are on Twitter or LinkedIn, and you want to mention something, I may not see it.
I should still see.
Let's see. I'm going to bring the comments over to a difference to my teleprompter so I can actually see those.
So yeah, YouTube and Twitch, I will see your comments there and I'll be able to like bring them up on the screen if you want.
So again, if you have any questions, not just about this, but about podcasting in general or artwork, let me know.
Okay, so also if you're a designer watching, I'm really, I'm real sorry for what I'm about to do because I'm not a good designer.
Okay, so I want a square image.
The podcast artwork in Apple Podcast recommends minimum 1500 by 1500 with a maximum of 3000 by 3000.
So that's where we'll start.
Now, the first thing I want to do here is let's set the background.
If I'm going to go with, let's go with the first.
So we'll go with be, we've got, oh, I guess the other thing I should do, right? Because I advise people to do this.
Is actually look at like how your artwork stands out.
So I'm going to search solo for yours.
Because I'm reasonably confident my show ranked number two for that in Apple Podcasts.
So I'm just going to go to shows and I'm going to look at what we're seeing here.
Okay, so first I'm seeing some yellow, right?
Clarity first, the bootstrap founder in my socks.
That's blue and yellow.
I don't, my eye is not really drawn anywhere though.
My friend, Yon Su's first class founders appears to be the only one using red. I mean, like next level solo for newers.
And so let's look at like what's, what's good here, right?
I'm going to like, I mean, so like my first million is a show that stands out because that's a popular one.
Sampar is relatively known.
I think that this is pretty good text. Again, I'm, I'm probably not going to use my face.
But gosh, if I like, okay, like if I like close my eyes and then open them.
My eye, my eyes kind of drawn to in my socks, which is a face.
You know, I think startups for the rest of us rob alling podcast, like that's pretty good. That's orange, big text.
This is really busy.
A lot of these are really busy. Like we want to find, we're looking for inspiration.
We want to find a good balance and clarity.
And so if I can I get to the category I'm trying to be in?
Let's go to top 200. Top 200 business.
Can I drill down deeper from there? No.
Okay, so business.
We're looking at business like lots of faces, right? Lots of dudes looking into the camera, either intense or smiling or like somehow both.
This one stands out just because it's different.
Founders.
Jocko.
So, you know, I this is tough, right? Like I want to just lost the game.
You know, I think a lot of people are using faces, but I think the most interesting ones aren't like experts of experience.
Most innovative companies, even like smart money, but your wallet, I think that's pretty good.
And again, it's important for you to look in the categories where you're trying to rank. Like if we look at technology.
Really busy, really busy artwork with like acquired.
I feel like kind of standing out in its simplicity.
Is this Cal Newport? Like is that what Cal Newport looks like? Is that him?
You're like Lenny, Lenny, Richie, Richie, Richie.
I've never said his name out loud.
But like this, like I like this to be honest. I mean, you but you need to know who Lenny is.
Like it's called Lenny's podcast.
But like again, that's simple, right? Color.
I mean, it's got a microphone.
Real talk, my friends, this was advice that came through in the article as well.
We don't need to put a microphone in podcast artwork.
You don't. Because you also don't need the word podcast.
Like if I was not to not to pick on Lenny here.
But I would never tell any of my clients or students to name their podcast.
This is their first name.
Lenny has done a really good job of like making his name his brand and it's understandable.
But like you don't need the word podcast because we know it's a podcast.
And we don't need a microphone in the artwork because also we know it's a podcast.
Unless it's like the microphone review podcast.
You know, I think like, okay, why Combinator?
Like this is basically their fave icon.
Like that's fine because they got brand recognition.
I like syntax.
I like this artwork. It's like it's simple.
It's a font that's commonly found in like IDs, which is a developer tool.
And it really stands out that way.
ATP has been around forever.
But like latent space.
Like, like it's very clear that this is just like all Photoshop together.
Like kind of poorly, it's not color corrected.
This font is not really readable.
13 minutes to the moon. This was a really good series.
So, you know, I think as you're looking for inspiration, look at what stands out to you and what you can do to stand out.
And so again, if we go to business, if we go to solopreneurs, that's the term I'm trying to rank for.
I think I have a pretty good shot.
I don't know why I'm suddenly down.
I'm like talking smack talking.
I think I have a good shot of standing out here.
I think in the first 10, the best one is probably this one.
And then in my socks, like that one like really stands out to me.
But the other ones are like, I mean, this is clearly designed.
But like these two like sorry if you're watching this, but.
Feels like not a lot of effort went into these.
So, okay, I know some of you are probably thinking like, hey, get to the part where you're actually making stuff.
So the yellow here, maybe I do a gradient.
I like super hate gradients in Canva.
Oh, they've gotten better though.
Okay, cool.
So I probably want something lighter yellow.
Let's do like, what's the hex code for yellow?
Okay, so it's like pure yellow.
And then we probably want to make this like a darker yellow, but definitely more yellow than brown.
So I think that's probably pretty good.
And then this is the part where like not being a designer super duper hurts me.
Because I can't make like I'm going to have to I can't draw a hourglass right.
So I can look for hourglass.
Got a couple of good ones here.
Probably.
Maybe I can ask chat GPT should I do that?
Oh, gosh.
No, stop.
Stop this.
Let's just start.
I'll ask you two questions.
I'll ask you this and then I'll actually ask it to like do the artwork and see what it comes up with.
I'm not going to use that, but it can be for like inspiration, especially because like words, right?
I'm also not going to tell it to act like a graphic design.
No.
I mean, this is exactly what I asked it to do.
Please generate a simple line graphic.
Mono color 2D.
Of an hourglass.
Make it black.
I don't know why I capitalize the word black there.
Can you all hear the music?
I think you can.
I guess that's good enough.
No one has spent too much time on this.
Okay. Okay. And the other thing I'll say is please generate podcast artwork.
I'd like it.
I will lose it if this generates anything close to what I'm thinking of.
I don't really love this.
So I'm just going to see what can that has to offer.
Again, like this is probably something I will like revisit with an actual graphic designer.
Gosh, that's actually not.
That's not.
That's not bad.
That's really not bad.
This is great.
Now I'm even more sorry graphic designers.
But this is pretty good.
I'd make some changes to this.
But I like the general style of it.
I'd probably shrink it, move it down.
So maybe we can we'll see what this concept is.
And then I'll kind of move it over to Canva.
Use some of their like background removal tools.
I should also say that I didn't really plan to use AI for this.
But you know, I guess it's always good to like get some inspiration.
So yeah, I am you stuck.
Am I stuck? Am I still here?
I didn't really plan to use AI for this.
But you know, I guess it's always good to like get some inspiration.
Yeah, it looks stuck.
Oh, okay.
So this is worse.
But this is a cleaner hourglass.
So let's do this.
Let's see.
Let's see what we can do with what we just created here.
I remove the background.
What's that going to do?
Huh.
I also want to can I like the circle thing like this is pretty good.
Can I?
Oh, that's the.
I think I probably can't.
And again, like I said, this is like the weakest part of my game, my friends.
I want to maybe just extract the hourglass from this.
Can AI do that for me?
I probably wanted to like grab this and move it down as an attachment.
I guess this is turned into redesigning my podcast artwork with AI.
Different.
You look different.
Okay.
Let's see if that works.
I was using this to generate like images of people like groups of people last night.
And let me tell you, it's it was like nightmare fuel.
I'm like, I shouldn't be doing this so late at night so close to bedtime.
But it was, you know, the scene from Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind where like the
memories being erased and like Jim Carrey is just looking at his memories and seeing
like faceless people or like people with their eyes like whether or not this is supposed to be.
I felt like that felt like everything is trained on comes from that scene.
That terrifying scene.
I have Photoshop.
And if I was any good at Photoshop, I would probably just like erase these things because
I actually like this stuff around it too.
It feels like very this feels very close to what I was thinking.
And I'm certain that.
Okay.
Yeah, let's run with that.
Let's see what that does.
We're going to go over.
I'm going to keep working because now I'm like really into this.
But I like, let's see.
I also like you've convinced me, AI, that these these are the better yellows.
So let's what's my hot key for sip?
Plus, if you don't know.
What is that?
Sip is this wonderful tool that will allow you to grab the hex color of whatever your mouse is over,
whatever your cursor is over.
And then copies it to your clipboard, which I see that looks like.
What's it called has integrated that canva has integrated that.
But yeah, I like that.
Like that yellow better.
Okay, cool.
So now let's upload this hourglass.
Yeah, this is pretty good.
Yeah.
And then let's.
I'm going to look good there.
Find some display funds.
I'm thinking something not quite that, but definitely something like fat.
When I when I came up with the.
The concept for a I thought like if I'm doing a sky motif.
Like a cloud kind of font might be good.
But now that this is kind of like sans through the hourglass.
These are the days of our lives.
I almost I almost like that.
This is always like my least favorite part is like picking a font.
Like I don't feel like I'm great at this.
I want to find something.
And like so and remember, I'm changing the name of this podcast at some point.
And so I want it to work pretty well for for the new name as well,
which I'm like leaning on automated solo, it's going to be something around that.
So maybe we do want something like a little techno, like a little bit like technical or like futuristic.
Which like this fits the bill for that.
The bold is so different from normal.
And again, like I'm picking a display font because like we want this to stand out on on like a small screen, right?
We and so we want people to be able to read the name of the show, especially.
That's definitely a choice.
Like that, but maybe that's like a little too on the nose.
Also like make sure your font conforms to the characters of whatever language you're putting the font in the text.
Like that. How J built it. How J where with where.
Not my favorite.
This like Rubik is so I feel like it's real close.
That's so close to what I want.
Like look at like.
Okay, I get why you would want these for certain things, but.
Maybe this is fine.
I know I just like find.
Yeah, this is definitely my least favorite part.
Yeah.
I don't love this.
It's fine. Good enough to like give to somebody though. Be like, Hey, make this something good.
Yeah.
Okay, so we'll leave it at this for now. This is not done. But I think this is pretty good. This is like in the direction I'm going.
And then if I change the name to let's let's say automated solo per newer that's so many words that's so long.
We definitely need to like way shrink this.
And like that's not great.
So like I will have to like fix it a little bit.
And that's a lot.
Like how I how I built is pretty punchy.
But I think it's something like this.
Let me know what you think in the comments or elsewhere.
I'd love to get your feedback.
Let you know. Let me know if I'm going kind of in the right way in the right direction.
And then yeah, that's it for this video that air this live stream. Thanks so much for watching. There was 20 like 10s of people watching.
So thank you so much for tuning in.
I hope you enjoyed it.
I'm going to try to do more of this. And I really appreciate you coming on and watching me work through my process.
If you want to get a behind the scenes look at all the stuff I'm doing you can become a pro member of my podcast a subscriber of my podcast over at how I built it slash pro which I really wish I had.
Not that one. I really wish I had a I'll just fix this over a really quick very professional here how I built it slash join.
Here we go.
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You can become a member for seven bucks a month and you'll get ad free extended episodes of my podcast you'll get bonus episodes and I'll definitely be working through a lot of this stuff over there otherwise subscribe to this channel.
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Thanks so much for joining me and until next time get out there and build something.