The Care Coaches is a fictional podcast about familial caregiving, which shares advice, resources, and other help that could be useful for someone taking care of a loved one. The Care Coaches is hosted by a brother and sister duo who learned to be good caregivers together and are ready to help guide others through the process. While there is no guidebook to familial caregiving, there are now The Care Coaches!
Ideation and Sketching
When I was starting to research for “The Care Coaches” I started by looking at what other podcast logos and cover art there already was. I looked at podcasts I liked and that are popular, and then also looked at what caretaker podcasts are out there. One of the challenges for me in this project was expressing the idea of caretaking since there aren’t distinct objects or analogies to express what it means to be a caretaker.
The Top 3 and Beyond
The podcast covers a very serious, and often times stressful, topic, but it has a more uplifting tone. “The Care Coaches” offers levity in the midst of the stress, with Diana and Carlos acting almost as older siblings there to give advice. I wanted to make sure that the typeface reflected that this podcast had some brightness to it.
The Final Solution
I played with adjusting the leaf to better tell the story of “The Care Coaches.” I see plants as an expression of familial caregiving because, like a plant, family comes from the same roots. When one branch or leaf starts to wither another comes to hold it up and support it, so that it can stay connected to the plant and the rest of the branches. The branch or leaf lending a hand doesn’t stop growing, it just grows in a different direction. Since caretaking is so abstract to describe in a way other than “caretaking” I found this lengthy analogy to be a sufficient description. My effort to include it in the logo was to play with the shape of the leaf. One side is a bit rough and weathered, while the other side is more clean and graceful. The rough side is only held up by the strength of the stem on the graceful side of the leaf, as it grows out of the “C” in coaches. I also decided to exclude "The" in the final solution for simplicity and overall balance.
