Branding 101: Geek Out With Me

11 min readDec 6, 2022

Branding 101: Geek Out With Me is a podcast brought to you by Chase Elser — a graduate student studying to earn her Master’s degree in Emerging Media from the University of Georgia’s New Media Institute.

Whether you want to learn how to effectively use technology to make your established brand more accessible online or if you’re starting a brand from scratch, this is the perfect podcast for you. Branding 101: Geek Out With Me provides its listeners with real emerging media solutions that help their brands excel. Topics include but are not limited to: brand strategy, social media, project management, UX and UI, design principles, and digital brand presence.

Above all else, this podcast brings a new, fresh perspective to the digital marketing and branding space. Branding 101: Geek Out With Me gives business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs alike the tools necessary to make their brands the best they can be.

In today’s world — thanks to the internet — really anyone can start a business. Branding 101: Geek Out With Me provides the necessary resources and guidance that those business owners are looking for. We propel your brand in the direction of success.

Why Branding 101?

Podcasting has become an extremely popular form of storytelling and is now a very saturated market.

There are lots of successful podcasts in the technology sector, the business sector, and the design sector — but there are little to no podcasts that address the intersection of the three–what Branding 101: Geek Out With Me intends to accomplish.

Branding 101: Geek Out With Me is a solution for the modern day business owner and aspiring entrepreneur alike. Giving an exclusive look into successful branding techniques using niche solutions, this podcast serves as a guidebook and inspiration to listeners of all professional backgrounds. As a current or future business owner, this should be a quick, easy and “bite-sized” way to get your day started the right way.

Branding 101: Project Features

The Podcast

Branding 101: Geek Out With Me’s podcast focuses on niche topics within the branding space. As a podcast host, I leverage my professional experiences, my honed research skills and the knowledge gained from my graduate program studies to dive deep into sectors of branding and business cultivation. My show is intended to be used as both a strategic tool and a form of entertainment for the modern day entrepreneur.

Podcast Cover Artwork

The Blog

My blog is intended to provide a deeper look into each episode and its respective topic. I have also transitioned to sharing a small personal story with each blog post. I felt like this would be a fun way to make the blog more personal, sharing a story from my life experiences that also supports the episode topic.

This allows me to stay in character during the podcast episodes, playing the role of the interviewer while my interviewee shares his or her story. The blog is the place where I can share my personal experiences and elaborate on how my experiences impact my show and the topics I choose to talk about.

The Website

Finally, the website. I created the website to keep everything in the same place. The website is where you can find a sign up form to receive emails with each blog post and an alert that the corresponding podcast episode is live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and my website via Buzzsprout.

The blog, podcast, and merchandise store will live here as well, along with an about page with Branding 101: Geek Out With Me’s mission.

I will link my website here as well as at the end of this article.

Goals and Impact

Not only have I already learned so much from the overall experience of creating this podcast, but I anticipate my listeners to learn something valuable too.

One of my biggest goals with this podcast is to create meaningful, interesting content that inspires and appeals to my target market.

With the proper research and intentions behind each episode, Branding 101: Geek Out With Me will be a source of inspiration and entertainment for those interested in entrepreneurship and branding.

Branding 101: Technology

Adobe Fresco

Adobe Fresco is where my creative ideas are born. Before beginning the logo process, Fresco is my go to for drawing out icon ideas and other creative prototyping. Fresco is where I drew the iconic frog holding his morning coffee cup.

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is where I upload those initial icon ideas and sketches to turn them into logos, iconography and other branded imagery. Illustrator is where I am able to create fully scalable, vectorized files of my brand assets.

Illustrator is where my logo came together, with vectorized Adobe Fonts (Righteous and Dosis Regular) which I use for my brand name and all other branded materials.

Adobe XD

Adobe XD is where I create website prototypes and other branded materials to help streamline the design process later on. XD is a place where I can quickly create prototype material using my brand assets.

Both my design system and my user experience research plan were curated using Adobe XD, which are two of my biggest assets to my Capstone project.

VS Code

VS Code is where I hand code my website using HTML and CSS primarily with a touch of JavaScript here and there for certain functions.

Logic Pro

Logic Pro is probably the most important piece of technology I use as a podcaster, it is where I compile all of my audio content. I record directly into Logic, and the entirety of my audio editing process takes place here as well.

Other Tech

Obviously, a podcast is not possible without the proper technology and equipment to capture the audio. I’ve been using my Blue Yeti microphone by LogiTech and my Apple AirPod Maxes to help me produce the best sound quality possible.

So far, the Yeti is a great option and it has had no issue capturing studio-quality sound. As a condenser microphone, it is best used on the cardioid setting to ensure that the microphone eliminates the chances of picking up too much unwanted background noise.

My Apple AirPod Maxes have been helpful so that I can properly gauge my tone and noise level while recording. Their incredible sound quality along with their noise canceling capabilities make these one of the best options for podcasting headphones.

Project Inspiration

Throughout this process I have found inspiration from many different sources. The following are just a few of my major sources of inspiration for Branding 101: Geek Out With Me.

“The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman

“The Design of Everyday Things” by cognitive scientist Don Norman is a detailed account of the importance of good design. It really broke down the user experience from a psychological perspective, taking a look at some of the everyday things that can often cause us headaches as users.

The user experience is often tainted by hard-to-use products — from the shower head at your friend’s house to an unfamiliar kitchen appliance — it can be difficult to use certain things that we otherwise thought we knew how to use.

“The Design of Everyday Things” did a great job at communicating that situations like these are the fault of bad design, not the fault of the user. This is one of the things I am stressing to my test subjects in my User Experience Research Plan: it is never the fault of the user, and it is always the fault of the design. I am doing everything I can to design with my user in mind, to avoid running into mishaps that may make my user feel at fault.

“Tragic Design” by Cynthia Savard Saucier and Jonathan Shariat

“Tragic Design” was one of the first books we read in Customer Experience Design which I took my first semester of EM classes in the summer of ’22.

Similarly to the first book I mentioned, “Tragic Design” took a look at lots of different real-life examples of poor design. This book looked particularly at more serious cases of bad design, where bad design led to serious consequences. “Tragic Design” challenged me to look at my design choices from a dramatic lens, acknowledging the fact that the wrong design choices can lead to serious failures and potentially could even hurt users.

The stakes aren’t as high for my particular project, so I don’t need to worry as much. But, thanks to “Tragic Design” I have been trying to consider all possible outcomes when making design choices that affect user experience.

Javascript Jabber

Javascript Jabber is a podcast hosted by a team of Javascript developers that really sparked my attention when I first started the Emerging Media program. My Customer Experience Design class (CX Design) challenged us to stay up to date with tech news that interested us. I have always been a big podcast fan, so I looked into technology podcasts to try and find something that could keep me up to date. And so I found Javascript Jabber.

The show is about all different topics related to technology, and due to the robust group of podcasters that make up Javascript Jabber’s team there is always something interesting to learn from each episode.

It is definitely longer than I ever wanted my episodes to be, but it did influence and inspire my show in a lot of ways. Above all else, it got me thinking about how to make my podcast special, through choosing a specific niche that I can stick to but that also allows me to be creative in my topic choices.

My Capstone Journey

Growth

Throughout the Capstone journey, my emerging media courses have really helped to streamline my project development.

I have pushed myself to create structured branding assets such as my Design System–created in my emerging media strategy course–that have proven to be essential in running a successful brand.

Thanks to these emerging media courses, I have been able to produce content that I am really proud of and excited to share.

My project’s assets–my Design System, User Experience Research Plan, User Experience Research Report and other deliverables–are linked at the end of this article.

Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned

In conducting research throughout the Capstone process, I learned many important things that I plan to implement in future research. The following are a few of those lessons I learned.

In-depth interviews yield some of the best results. The more personal I am able to get with my test subjects, the more I will be able to understand their interests and what kind of content they want to see.
My target audience has two sectors and a very broad age range. Because of this, I need to be specific and make sure to collect demographic information like age and educational background to really help me segment between my two major population demographics.
The more detailed my pre-test and post-test survey questions are, the better my data will be for improving my content. My goal is to improve my podcast and blog content for my target audience, which will not be possible without a detailed account of interest levels and opinions.
In design, less is more. In website design it can be especially difficult to strike the proper balance between being too plain or boring and being aesthetically over-stimulating. My brand has a very saturated palette with busy imagery, so it was important for me to be conservative in my use of brand assets, keeping things simple when necessary.

Challenges and Victories

Throughout my Capstone journey I have faced many challenges. But, I have watched as those challenges are followed by victories, due to perseverance and trust in the Branding 101: Geek Out With Me mission.

I first struggled to balance the different roles required to fill to pull off a well-rounded project but with practice, I learned to juggle them gracefully and started to hone in on my skills in each of these different roles.

I also ran into some external issues that were out of my control. I had trouble with my merchandise printer meeting a deadline for my merchandise order and a technological issue or two along the way that affected me on the development side. But with a positive attitude and a hard work ethic, I was able to solve these issues and turn them into victories.

Why Emerging Media?

As an undergraduate student, I always took classes in the New Media Institute as I worked towards a certification in New Media. The NMI was always a place that inspired me to push myself further than I ever thought I could, whether that was in my Advanced Production class learning new concepts in JavaScript or in my Design class learning the ins and outs of Adobe Creative Suite.

After being part of the NMI for some time, I knew I was interested in pursuing the Emerging Media Master’s program.

I chose to pursue the Emerging Media program because I knew that it would give me the opportunity to learn more about the particular role I want to play in the industry while also expressing my skills in a way that will help propel me towards my future career goals.

Reflection and Advice

Reflecting on my journey in this program and the NMI, I realize that I have been pushed further than I ever thought possible.

I have been challenged with the task of juggling my Capstone project on my own while also maintaining my homework and general assignments in each of my courses. Every time I am amazed at my ability to perform to the best of my ability and to produce content that I am excited about and proud of. That is one of the beauties of the NMI and this program, they will encourage you to push yourself because they know you can handle it. They know you are capable!

That being said, I do have some advice for my future EM friends. Make sure you are keeping track of things, I mean literally everything. Every little assignment detail is important and could cost you points if neglected.

It can be difficult to manage things if you are jumping back and forth between documents on ELC, so I would recommend writing things down on a physical calendar or in your notes, however you see fit. Keeping track of the details will save you time in the end, I promise.

This brings me to my next piece of advice — plan ahead! I struggled at first learning how to properly plan two weeks in advance when it felt like a deadline was so far out of reach. But, it is really helpful how EM Workshop kind of breaks up the Alpha and Beta into four distinct deadlines with short demo videos due every week throughout the semester. In any case, it is really important that you plan ahead, however that looks for your particular project.

Lastly, good luck! Take advantage of your time in EM. The New Media Institute is amazing!