Command Line Heroes is an award winning original podcast from Red Hat about the people who transform technology from the command line up. However, before season 1, it was more like an under-the-radar, flying by the seat of our pants, passion project.
A bat signal for the IT crowd.
To launch the series and build our audience, we wanted a visual approach that felt more like an upcoming streaming show than a tech podcast. We needed to intrigue our audience and indicate that this content is right up their alley. Our concept needed to be simple and a little inside baseball.
Once we landed on using the command prompt for the show mark, we decided to have a little fun. Using only those two basic shapes, >_, we built teaser social ads that hinted at the various topics and themes we would cover throughout the season.
Launching into new territory.
Once the podcast launched, we introduced the main season art direction theme. Keeping with the mystery of the series, we anchored our season on an open laptop in an etheral space. Each episode was represented with a different laptop sticker that was added after each episode had dropped.
A successful season wrapped.
In its first season, Command Line Heroes had over 300,000 episode downloads and built a following of 40,000 subscribers. The show also peaked at the number four spot on Apple iTunes in the Technology category and were included in Apple’s “New and Noteworthy” section.
Credits
Executive Producer: Brent Simoneaux
Senior creative strategist: Justin Braun
Associate Creative Director- Copy: Casey Stegman
Associate Creative Director- Art & Illustrator: Nick Burns
Associate Creative Director- Animation: Laura Walters
Account manager: Victoria Lawton
Senior UX lead: Aaron Williamson
This is the personal site of Nick Burns and is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Red Hat, Inc.
