Revision Path

Revision Path™ is an award-winning platform that showcases Black designers, artists, developers, and digital creatives from all over the world.

About

I created Revision Path in February 2013. The first interview was published on March 23, 2013, and one month later, Revision Path switched to a weekly format, with interviews publishing every Monday at 10:00am ET. Revision Path was created because I feel that the stories of Black designers and developers deserve to be shared and told. Revision Path exists as a platform for these creative individuals to shine by giving them an opportunity to talk about their work.

Brand Design and Usage

From the beginning, I wanted Revision Path's branding to be simple, but memorable. I used a road motif for the icon and a bold sans-serif typeface (Gotham) for the wordmark. The logo works with both the icon and wordmark together, or with the icon by itself, like an abbreviation. I kept this concept even when refreshing the brand in 2020.

This logo is the core of the Revision Path identity, and is used throughout the website and our social media, as well as on merchandise and print materials.

The Work

Deciding who to interview for Revision Path often involved looking at an individual’s body of work and determining whether they would be good to talk to for the show based on those criteria and other non-design factors (age, geography, sexual orientation, etc.).

The most time went into scouting who to interview and seeing if they would agree to be on the show. Once they’ve agreed, the rest of the interview process was pretty simple.

Revision Path was powered by WordPress, and had a number of plugins installed for editorial workflow, podcast production, and SEO. Interview scheduling was done using Book Like A Boss, recording was done using Skype and MP3 Skype Recorder and Audacity, and editing was done using Auphonic, Adobe Audition, and Audacity.

From there, interviews were published via Simplecast to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and other podcast directories, as well as on Instagram, Twitter, and on the Revision Path website.

The focus of each episode of Revision Path is the guest, so cover art for each episode featured a prominent photo of the guest with the Revision Path icon in the corner as a watermark.

Aside from the podcast, I also did an annual holiday gift guide every December. This marketing campaign serves two purposes: 1) fundraising via affiliate marketing links in the holiday gift guide; and 2) keeping the audience active and engaged with a countdown leading up to when the gift guide publishes.

Here are some sample graphics I created which we used over the years to brand the gift guide.

From time to time, I had the opportunity to have enough of a budget to bring on freelance writers. The goal here was to have content to fill in the gaps between podcast air dates, while also providing a platform for people to learn about design through a different lens.

Over 50 articles have been published, and I designed all the key art used for these posts, as well as internal images for additional context.

RECOGNIZE was a design anthology I created in 2019 under Revision Path. I would provide a word for a theme, and people would submit essays based on that theme, and received payment if their essay was published.

I partnered with InVision for the first volume of RECOGNIZE, and the essays were published on their blog, Inside Design. I self-funded the second volume of RECOGNIZE, and the essays from there were published on A List Apart.

Also in 2019, Revision Path was included as the first podcast included in the permanent archives of the Smithsonian Institute for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture.

In 2023, Revision Path celebrated it’s 10th anniversary, along with its 500th episode in April. Check out a full list of press mentions, including coverage from Columbia Journalism Review, Entrepreneur, Audible, Google Design, and NPR.

Conclusion

After 550 episodes, the podcast ended in March 2024.

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