Mr. Rubio Used to Run (2023-NOW)

When starting work with Sports Warehouse collection of companies in 2023, I was tasked with the simple concept of making a podcast for a company that sells running shoes. After a creative brief with the show’s Host (and owner of Running Warehouse), he wanted the show to feel like a conversation with his friends at his favorite bar, here in San Luis Obispo. As straightforward as that might sound, it took a lot of work to make an engaging show that celebrates a sport where ‘people do nothing but run forward’ and while being candid, authentic, raw, and often off-the-cuff. It’s always a good thing when podcasters are self aware…

With time, trial, and error, the show began to hit its stride when incorporating an authentic sense of humor– as well as a constant rotation of professional runners, Olympians, Nike ad executives, and pretty much anyone else Running Warehouse CEO can convince to appear on his show.

After co-developing the show’s direction with SW’s photographers to get hero shots that would become the show’s lead image, I started developing the show’s motion graphics, including standard elements like the intro, lower thirds, captions/subtitles, visual effects, as well as one-off, custom graphics and animations with proven ability to retain viewers young and old. I was really excited by the show producer’s reported the uptick in traffic, and gave me the direction of making the podcast weirder, while remaining professional and an authority in the professional Running World.

Being comfortable with long-format audio and video productions, I found myself adept at fully producing audio and video versions of the podcast, as well as the logo and graphics package. My previous work on Double Fine PsychOdyssey was over 24 hours of combined content, so an hour long podcast was pretty easy. Inversely, I soon developed a knack for creating short form content as well, my Instagram and YouTube shorts gathering millions of views for the company, with certified virality.

The majority of the episode releases are filmed and recorded in our in-house podcast studio. The room was built with a mix of proprietary tools and tried and true ones, as well. The studio uses SMB7 mics, a 3-camera PZ Optics system to capture in-studio guests, and Riverside.fm to capture remote guests. All of this runs through a Scarlett 18i8o interface to an ATEM Mini Pro video switcher. I helped design the studio as well as install sound treatment materials. As a company, Sports Warehouse uses Hindenburg Pro, an audio tool focused on rapid audio production, and that is also frequently used from National Public Radio programs like mine, Citizen Sound.

Aside from producing podcasts, I run record sessions and voice over work that we use in the broadcast commercials that we’ve produced for worldwide television broadcast. The studio started as just another a room in our building, but has slowly developed over the past couple years, installing wood panelling as backdrop, installing soundproofing, and co-designing a modular system for respective company logos to be displayed in the background for a podcast’s respective brand, including Talk Tennis.

Sometimes, the jokes don’t make it past internal review. That’s a nice way of saying that we may have taken the joke too far, but the clips make us laugh regardless. Sometimes it’s more valuable that way, to promote trust and often find ways to reuse cut content. With this in mind, I’m always happy to cut material that the client doesn’t feel hit right for whatever reason. Having worked with so many larger productions, I’m used to the complex moving parts that impact my creative vision. I’ve always got more good ideas.

Utilizing my skills as a graphic designer, I was also tasked with a company-wide rebrand of YouTube thumbnails for Running Warehouse, a well-studied artform, in itself.