Before we ever rolled a camera, I asked Tonya a simple question: are you willing to break the rules of podcast production? No boring portraits. No expected lighting. No Pastel blazers with a hearty laugh. No visual language that felt safe or generic. 

Instead, we treated the show the way I would treat a pop album, designing a visual identity that could carry emotion, tension, and personality. 

As part of the Contains Humanity philosophy, I spent time listening to where she wanted her career to go, not just where the podcast was at in that moment, and decided to help define her now so future pivots would feel natural rather than forced.

Tonya was immediately on board, trusted the process fully, and never questioned the direction. We pulled from her journals, the themes of each season, and tactile textures to visually translate what couldn’t be said on a microphone.

I learned all the rules of podcast production first, and once you know the rules, you know exactly which ones are worth breaking. That approach resulted in the season winning Best Short Form Documentary and marked the beginning of a long creative partnership rooted in trust, intuition, and humanity.

Winner of Best Documentary Podcast Short-form