Gimlet Media Site Launch
Gimlet Media is an award-winning narrative podcasting company that aims to help listeners better understand the world and each other. Gimlet podcasts are streamed over seven million times per month by listeners from nearly 190 countries worldwide—Spotify acquired them in 2019 for 200M.
Summary: In 2015, while at Design Commission I was given the opportunity to help Gimlet media build a defining web presence for the fledgling podcast company. Gimlet had just completed a rebrand and launched their new show, Mystery Show, and they were eager to build a home for all of the shows they had in the works. The primary goal of this project was to create a web platform for the growing startup to build and grow their shows and audiences.
Deliverables: Wireframes, Iconography, UI Component Library, UI Design Comps
To understand the requirements and goals of the project, we spent time exploring the podcast listener problem space and Gimlet Media’s competitive landscape. This involved conversations with current Gimlet listeners, interviews with Gimlet show producers, and synthesizing the big-picture needs of the internal stakeholders. The output from this process was used to develop the ideal information architecture of the site, with a specific focus on dynamic searching, listening, and sharing podcasts that scaled as the platform grew.
Once the wireframes and information architecture were in place, I shifted my focus to developing a conceptual direction for the site that matched the newly established Gimlet brand. Thanks to the branding guidelines, I quickly created a component library and site-wide page compositions that reflected the brand's essence. The design system accommodated unique micro-sites for individual shows while minimizing development and maintenance costs.
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Gimlet Home
The latest podcast episodes were the main focus of the homepage with some tertiary actions of browsing all shows, signing up for the newsletter, or getting the latest Gimlet news.
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Show Page View
Each podcast had its own listview of episodes as well as show transcripts, blog posts, and platform subscription links
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Mobile views
The mobile site views were optimized for mobile podcast browsing and listening.
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Gimlet Growth
In addition to the core functionality, I built out subscription flows as well as landing pages that were part of larger growth efforts
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Press page
And finally, a press page section to capture all the hype.
One of the project's main goals for Gimlet producers was to create a simple show presentation system that didn't require any client involvement in the backend. We utilized WordPress as the CMS and integrated multiple APIs, including Soundcloud, Mailchimp, and social sharing tools for episodes to accomplish this. We wrapped up the website launch to coincide with the release of several new shows and were met with a lot of hype. The Gimlet team was happy, and I took a breather to catch up on my Startup and ReplyAll episodes. I finally scored one of those Freddies!
Gimlet Creative Site launch
Later in the year, I worked with Gimlet to launch the Gimlet Creative site, which was a home for the sponsored content shows that Gimlet had started producing. The architecture was similar to the main Gimlet site, so I was able to spend some cycles iterating and improving the global components as we built out this companion site.
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Gimlet Creative Home
The primary purpose of the GC homepage was to build interest with potential brand partners.
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Show Page View
Each podcast had its own list view of episodes, About page, and platform subscription links. One significant improvement added was an embedded episode player that allowed users to navigate while listening to episodes.
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Episode page view
We were finally able to build out a dedicated detail page for each episode. This allowed for richer content to be shared specific to that episode.
Final Thoughts
The acquisition of Gimlet Media by Spotify for $200M is a remarkable outcome that highlights Gimlet's impact in the world of podcasting. As a fan of many shows, I’m very proud to have shared in the journey to a successful exit.
This project was a significant milestone in my career as a seasoned designer. It was my first new product where I owned the design process from beginning to end, my first real dive into systems and pattern thinking, and we came out on the other side with something that kicked ass. I'm grateful I was present for the challenge and opportunity.