A Podcast State of Mind: Conversations, Challenges, and Reflections
Nick a -
Hello everyone, and welcome to another blog post. I’m your host, Nick Asrari—oh wait, wrong thing, my bad.
After experimenting for a while, I designed a logo that I’m happy with. I removed the top parts of my original design and repositioned the title. My goal was to avoid too much empty space while also not overcrowding it. I’ll share a picture of my old logo and the new one—let me know which one you prefer! I get really picky about how things look, so I ended up spending a while trying to find the right positioning for the text and graphics.
*old logo *new logo
Also, I finally finished my theme song! I spent hours working on it in GarageBand. It didn’t take long to put together, but finding the right instruments and tracks took forever. I decided not to include lyrics since they didn’t fit with the song, but I might try adding a version with recorded lyrics for next week’s post. Take a listen and see how it sounds!
Before starting this podcast, I thought a lot about how people would listen to it. I love watching talk shows, and I know what you’re thinking—do they even exist anymore? Two of my favorites are Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Graham Norton Show. I noticed how they interviewed celebrities differently from other talk show hosts. They let their guests talk and made it clear that the spotlight wasn’t on them, but on the people they were interviewing. I took notes and applied that to my podcasting. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself—I wanted my guests to feel open and comfortable talking about their careers and themselves. Less cold, more comforting, like sitting around a campfire. At the same time, however, I may need to add a few remarks here and there to keep the conversation flowing.
I was able to conduct two more interviews in the past week. One was with a civil engineer, and it lasted around 40 minutes. I didn’t change my questions, but the person I interviewed spoke more slowly than my first guest and had a lot to say. That was probably one of my favorite interviews so far.
I’m planning to meet with my mentor this week to discuss how my first few interviews went and may even start the editing process.
My other interview lasted roughly ten minutes. The three interviews I’ve conducted so far have all been different lengths, which kind of freaked me out. I wanted my episodes to be relatively consistent in length so that listeners know what to expect, but I also wanted to make the conversation appear smooth and natural. I asked the same questions throughout all my interviews so far, but the final recordings varied in length. I noticed that when a guest talked faster, I did too. There’s something really satisfying about a smoothly flowing podcast, and that’s what I want to emulate.
My most recent interview was with an assistant buyer for Ross. And no, I’m not talking about Ross Geller from Friends. I found this interview fascinating simply because I didn’t know much about the job beforehand.
Since I used a quote from a cartoon last time, and I have a signature question on my podcast, I’ve decided to include signature quotes in my blog posts too. In The Simpsons, Homer Simpson once said, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. Let me know if you ever find that job.”
That’s it for now—see you next week!
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