It’s hard to begin, because there’s so much I want to say. When Tom and I started this endeavor, we had absolutely no idea what it would become. We’d just sit around and jabber about design and technology, and every now and then I’d drop in a “hey, this is the podcast.” When we actually started making the show a reality, we had pretty high hopes tingled with pretty mixed expectations. After a few really, really awful test runs (recorded by myself, alone at a computer), Bennett and Adrian were convinced and bought us a mic to start recording for real. We invited Donovan to join us for that first show and… here we are.

To say the first handful of shows were done by the seat of our pants would be a tremendous understatement. Almost immediately we ran into the problem of talking about an industry of primarily visual things with no way of showing anything we were discussing. Enhanced podcasts were out there, but there wasn’t any easy way to make that happen. The three of us handle this show entirely in our free time, recording and editing on nights and weekends, so finding the extra time to add photos and links wasn’t really possible.

The Enhanced BADCast

I’m going to Apple-out here for a second, as I’m prone to do. iLife ‘06 is the best thing ever made. On BADCast 15 alone it cut my editing time in half. Garage Band is now fully-supportive of creating podcasts and has streamlined the process like magic. Adding chapters and images and links is rdqlus’ly easy. So it was a no-brainer to bring this podcast into the enhanced form.

(Don’t think Tom and Donovan didn’t put a lot of effort into convincing me to call it the EXTREME BADCast. There are far too many similarities to Vanilla Ice in a name like that for my stomach to handle, however.)

So now you’ll find easily digestible chapters in each BADCast, and you can skip around to your heart’s content. We’ve been sure, for instance, to mark the Taboo Typefaces and Student Tips so you crazy kids can jump right to it. Here’s how it works:

Normal podcasts are audio files that you listen to in software like iTunes or on your Mp3 player of choice. Enhanced podcasts are essentially the same thing, but with chapters, images, and links embedded into them. When you play the BADCast in iTunes now, a menu appears at the top of the window displaying chapters and artwork (according to Apple, Mac OS X 10.2.anything users won’t see the artwork in the menu, but everything else is the same).

The artwork appears in the image window of iTunes and will show links at the bottom that you can click on to get more information about whatever we’re talking about. Mainly, we’re using this feature so that when we’re bashing on the at&t logo, you get to see what we’re talking about.

Heck Yes, There’s More

Look, we love our listeners. We love getting feedback and seeing links out there in the world. Lord knows Tom loves his fanmail, he gets loads more of it than Donovan or I. We’re very humbled that we’ve been able to connect with so many young (and old) designers in the world and that you all seem to keep coming back for more.

So for those of you who can’t get enough BADCasting, we’ve gone back into the archive and are updating each of the previous 14 episodes of the Be A Design Cast to the enhanced format. What does this mean? That means if Tom’s rant during the first show about DC Cab got your goat, not only can you see it, but you can click on it in your iTunes window and go to Amazon.com and buy it. The first half are available right now (including our interviews with Ric Grefé and Joe Duffy), and we’ll be catching up the rest at a rate of about 1 or 2 each week.

We’ve also redesigned ourselves a bit. The old grey mare, er, microphone, just aint what she used to be. Like everything else, the initial design was done by the seat of our pants and all we wanted to do was incorportate the design of the site into our album art. I’ve been wanting to redesign it ever since it hit the web. This seemed like the perfect opportunity and now, we’ve got the new kind of hotness. We’ve been sitting on the new design for a few weeks now, waiting for the updates to get finished, and everytime I see the old artwork on the site I just about cringe. Hope you like it.

New Interviews Are On the Way

Stay tuned to the Be A Design Cast in the coming months for interviews with Aesthetic Apparatus, Brian Edlefson of Target, and CSA Design. In late June, Tom, Donovan, and I will be traveling to foggy San Fransisco for interviews with Volume, Inc., and this little place called Pentagram.* Also the three of us, who are all members of the AIGA Nebraska Board of Directors, will be attending the AIGA National Leadership Retreat on the same weekend. So if you’re in the area, look us up! The Polyfro Mobile Recording Studio will be in full effect.

We’re still thrilled to be doing the show and even more thrilled that anyone would ever listen to it. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening.

-Nate
(Questions, comments, suggestions? Drop ‘em below in the comments section!)

*Future programming may be subject to change. We’re just covering our butts here in case our flight gets canceled.