Gregg DellaRocca

The Origins of Podcasting – Infographic Design
Project developed and executed as a Senior Designer at Modicum.
Roles: Creative Direction, Design Lead, Illustration

Client Background
Modicum is a B2B marketing and creative agency. They blend strategy, creative, technology, and content to solve your most challenging business problems with thoughtful and irreverent design. Modicum has shaped the craft of presentation design while expanding its expertise in business storytelling.

The Origins of Podcasting

Inspired by the office's sudden case of "podcast fever" I decided to start working on a downtime project to both advance my illustration skills and learn more about the actual origins of podcasting. I became obsessed with the idea and began sinking hours upon hours of my own time into developing the visual style and researching a solid timeline. Once completing my first draft I presented the concept to my creative director Scott Falivenee, who immediately showed interest in the idea and gave it the green-light for further concepting.

The Story

The history of podcasting is, for the most part, unwritten and difficult to assemble. So I needed some help. As it turns out our copywriter Brian Roff, on top of being an excellent story teller was a huge fan of Podcasting and had even met/worked with some of the pioneers I mentioned in my first draft. Together, we found the history of podcasting was piecemeal and far from definitive. We worked scattered details into a cohesive story and ended up with a timeline we felt gave a fair surface level understanding of the origins.

Our graphic timeline of this story, like any first draft of history, contains a mix of indisputable facts and interpretations. At some point, the Internet may agree on a singular narrative. "The Origins of Podcasting" went on to win design awards, was shared all over social media and was recycled into an example for a new online design application Ceros. Select content was taken/paraphrased from Modicum's blog entry, you can check it out here.