The guys over at Queer Money have been some of my favorite people for some time now. I remember when I first found their podcast. I was working at a retirement account services company and pondering my personal finances after seeing first hand how dire most people’s long term financial prospects are.
At the time, I would often commute back and forth between my hometown of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Denver Colorado, where I resided. During the ten hours it took to commute each way, I wanted to find something that was educational, entertaining, and also catered to my unique experience as a trans person.
So, I searched in my podcasting app of choice (pocketcasts, if you’re wondering) lgbtq finance, and up popped Queer Money, a finance podcast dedicated to addressing the unique concerns of the LGBTQ+ community.
At the time, I was also becoming more interested in joining a Business Resource Group at the organization I worked at. When I got an email from someone named David Auten (now David Auten-Schneider) about the opportunity, I jumped. I still remembered after one of the first meetings going, “gee that guy’s voice sounded familiar. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never met him before.”
It was probably a week later, after listening to another episode of Queer Money that I drew the connection. “Wait a second! That’s my coworker I just met!”.
I hurriedly opened my email app and shot off an email to David, expressing that I had been listening to Queer Money and that couldn’t believe that he worked at the same place I did.
Project 1: Queer Money Logo & Branding
After doing some graphics for the LGBT Business Resource Group, David expressed to me that he was impressed with my graphic design skills, and that he and his partner, John, who co-hosts the Queer Money podcast, were looking for someone to design them a logo.
That is where my relationship with Queer Money began.
For my logo Design, I started by giving the guys several directions we could go in, packaged neatly in a pdf playbook that would give them some opportunities to cater to different branding approaches. Below are some of the prototypes I developed:
I have to admit that I feel that my logo design skills have come a long way since designing these concepts, but the fact that David and John were happy and easy to work with — and more impressively, actually concerned about my professional development — was refreshing and made the process fun and exciting.
After designing these initial brand concepts, the guys ended up choosing concept 3, and we were off to the iteration phase. The final logo outcome is below:
It was great to work with Queer Money on this project, and I was and am still very grateful to be working with the guys on their podcast.
For delivery of the Logo, I made various versions to work with Merchandise, Print Media, and Digital Media, such as a website, as well as mockups so that they could visualize how it would look prior to deciding what to put their new logo on.
Project 2: YouTube, Blog, and Episode Graphics/Thumbnails
Sometime later, David and John reached out to me again, this time requesting help with their YouTube and Episode Thumbnails. I was excited to be able to work with them again, especially because I felt that I had grown a lot as a designer since the previous time we had worked together.
I felt that my contributions would give the podcast the opportunity to elevate their brand more, and hopefully refine the original concept that we had chosen some time before.
To get started, again, I made some various concept designs that would give them the ability to choose a direction with. In the end, we wound up using a style that both refined and expanded the original concept we had created during the logo design. This time, however, we would use high quality illustrations that catered to the podcast episode content and featured the various types of identities of audience members.
Project 3: Podcast Production/Editing
In my latest work with the Queer Money podcast, I’ve been mixing, editing, and mastering the audio for each Tuesday episode. This has been some of my favorite work because it takes me back to the years that I spent learning about audio while making music.
One of the more important components of the job is to get the audio quality to be as high as possible. So, for each episode, I normalize the audio of each recording, EQ and compress the audio, and remove any excessive reverb or audio artifacts prior to starting my edit. Below is an example of audio before and after this process:
Raw Audio
After Mastering and Editing
Miscellaneous Projects
Over the years, I’ve also done miscelaneous work for the Queer Money Podcast as well including some of the below:
- Editing of Short-Form Video
- Keyword Research for blog and YouTube videos
- Writing of Show Notes and Episode Titles
What David and John Say About my Work
“Working with Danny has been great. From our logo to show graphics, he takes our rough ideas and turns them into something better than what we envisioned. We love the sophistication of his style and the subtly he adds to each piece. Danny truly listens to his clients and is invested in their success. We look forward to many more years of working with him.” – David and John Auten-Schneider
Conclusion
Overall, David and John of Queer Money are some of my favorite clients that I have ever had. Beyond the fact that we’ve had an ongoing relationship that has lasted years, and they are open to new ideas, I’m always very inspired to help them take their business to the next level in whatever way that they imagine that happening. Many thanks to both David and John for our continued business partnership over the years.
