A comedy podcast about a crew of misfits lost on the wrong side of a wormhole.
Services
Built in collaboration with the L.A.-based IP studio, MWM Universe.
Led by Diana Williams, Universe focused on world-building across various projects, including Dragon Prince (Netflix), Welcome to Nevermore (Hebru Brantley), and Frolic Media (Sarah Penna & Lisa Berger).
One of the most exciting aspects of Voyage was its constant evolution - what began as a limited podcast expanded into comic books, live events, collectible merch, and collaborations with Angela Kinsey, Paul F. Tompkins, and Harvey Guillen.
With each evolution of Voyage came substantial changes to the website; not only did visual aesthetics shift with each new season, but significant structural changes were occurring on the backend as well.
We were able to expand on the inspiration behind character sketches and an early draft of the poster to create the branding for the new site.
OUR CHALLENGE
An obvious distinction between a podcast and a website is one requires a good amount of visually-supportive elements — our challenge was to help Universe fill out the look and feel of the Voyage site with just a handful of initial assets.
Early concept art for the character of Elsa by Miguel Coronado III.
With this visual challenge in mind, our first step (as with any new project) was to answer, what is the primary goal of this website? For season 01, the site needed to promote new episodes when they dropped, ensure that audiences had an easy way to learn about the key cast members, and provide an easy way to subscribe via a preferred platform. It was a very focused project at the outset.
Concept to Concrete
In the months leading up to the release of Voyage, the Universe team was focused on producing the actual podcast (i.e., writing, recording, editing, scheduling, etc.), meaning, Firewatch needed to be able to step in and remove the burden of producing a website.
We were able to expand on the inspiration behind character sketches and an early draft of the poster to internally create graphic design files, background images, color pallets, video loops, font branding, etc.
Our first draft of the website wasn't simply a barebones wireframe, it was a living, breathing website that the internal Universe team could engage with and provide feedback on. From the outset, thanks to our clear communication, the initial site design was 90% spot on with the final working draft of the live site.
Podcast to Comic
Retro Revamp
With season 02 came a complete overhaul of the site. The new goal of the website (now that a baseline audience had been well-established) was to drive engagement in several real-world ways.
Beyond the podcast episodes and special guest talent, Voyage was now rolling out t-shirts, pins, crew badges, limited posters, and, most exciting, a comic book written by Ryan Copple and James Asmus, and illustrated by Connie Daidone.
With the comic being distributed by IDW, the t-shirts and pins mailed out via internal teams, and the posters and pins managed by an external partner, we needed a flexible approach to the eCommerce integrations. By utilizing the ShipStation API with Clockwise Tees, a custom apparel company based in Pittsburgh, we were able to specify which items for sale were sent off for distribution via which teams.
