Switch 2 The Past (Formerly The GameCube Was Cool Podcast) is a show about the past, present, and future of video games with a focus on all things Nintendo. I created the website, branding, and artwork used for all the different iterations of the show. Website includes includes news & articles, episodes, and a game database.
visit live site →The project included branding the show as well as the creation of the website and episode/social media artwork.
For the brand I wanted to create something simple and recognizable without too much text. Originally the show was all about the Nintendo GameCube. Naturally the colour purple was what I was drawn to immediately when thinking of that console. Next was adding the controllers which I took photos of and edited to work well as a square logo. I even added a small light at the bottom, representing the GameCube’s power light.
After the GameCube’s library was completed, the show was rebranded to The Unlocking What Was Cool podcast and then finally to Switch 2 The Past. Switch 2 The Past encompassed a much larger subset of the gaming industry but still focused on Nintendo related news. With that each font of “PAST” represented a different Nintendo franchise (P, from Mario Party, A from Zelda, S from Starfox, and T from Metroid).
The site itself was created with webflow based on the brand guide created for the show. The website itself houses information about the show, relevant links, reviews and ratings, and individual episode information. I designed it to reflect the fun yet informative mission of the show and attempted to use a lot of elements from the original Nintendo GameCube such as the controller buttons as hover states on the navigation.
This was of course a very fun project to work on, any time you get to create an entire brand from scratch it’s always an exciting challenge. One lesson that I certainly learned was the importance of contunity when rebranding. Sometimes it can be good to wipe the slate clean but other times a brand can have a powerful attachment to a lot of people, and rather than a total tear down, a more subtle enhancement can be much more impactful while respecting the brand’s history and audience.
