Podcast Awesome
On Podcast Awesome we talk to members of the Font Awesome team about icons, design, tech, business, and of course, nerdery.
🎙️ Podcast Awesome is your all-access pass into the creative engine behind Font Awesome — the web’s favorite icon toolkit. Join host Matt Johnson and the Font Awesome crew (and friends) for deep dives into icon design, front-end engineering, software development, healthy business culture, and a whole lot of lovingly-rendered nerdery.
From technical explorations of our open-source tooling, chats with web builders, icon designers, and content creators, with the occasional gleeful rants about early internet meme culture, we bring you stories and strategies from the trenches of building modern web software — with a healthy dose of 80s references and tech dad jokes.
🎧 Perfect for:
- Icon design and content-first thinking
- Creative process and collaborative design
- Work-life balance in tech
- Remote team culture and async collaboration
- Internet history, meme archaeology, and other nerd ephemera
🧠 Come for the design wisdom, stay for the deep meme cuts and beautifully crafted icons.
Podcast Awesome
🎬 From Script to Sizzle: How We Cooked Up the Font Awesome 7 Promo Video 🎬
Summary
What does it take to shoot a high-energy, humor-packed, visually delicious Font Awesome marketing video? A 12-hour day, a diner full of chaos, and a guy in a hot dog suit. In this episode, Matt chats with Jory and Isaac, two key players behind the Font Awesome 7 video, about the hilarious mishaps, creative choices, and ridiculous amounts of pancakes that went into bringing the video to life.
They cover everything from why FA videos always feature food-themed settings to the art of keeping a cast of recurring characters (aka the Font Awesome Cinematic Universe). And yes, Easter eggs abound — including a cameo from FA co-founder Dave Gandy, cheers-ing a Stormtrooper, blue milk in hand. Plus, Isaac documented the whole process, creating FA’s first behind-the-scenes mini-documentary.
Key Takeaways
🔥 FA videos don’t follow the “no comedy in tech” rule — and that’s exactly why they work.
🎬 From coffee shops to candy stores to diners, FA videos always have a warm, real-world setting (because a lab full of beakers? Snooze).
🤝 The same cast keeps coming back — because the FA Cinematic Universe is a thing now.
📹 The behind-the-scenes doc captures the chaos of shooting in one day —including an entire subplot about pancakes raining from the sky.
🌭 A guy in a hot dog suit wore it all day. No, really. All day.
👀 Hidden Easter eggs in the video include an inside joke about “changing the recipe” and a blue milk cheers from FA’s co-founder.
Timestamps
🎤 0:00:09 - Welcome to Podcast Awesome! Matt sets the stage for this episode, talking about the Font Awesome 7 video shoot, the team behind it, and why humor is baked into FA’s DNA.
🎞️ 0:04:06 - The evolution of FA videos: From Kickstarter promos to a full-blown recurring cast — how FA has built a Cinematic Universe of its own.
🍪 0:10:45 - The FA video playbook: Coffee shops, candy stores, and diners—why FA videos always happen in warm, real-world food settings instead of cold tech labs.
🎭 0:18:05 - Bringing the band back together: How the same actors, crew, and production team keep the FA vibe consistent (and keep the jokes landing).
📹 0:26:11 - Lights, camera, pancakes! Improv moments, VFX wizardry, and an actor in a hot dog suit — who refused to take it off all day.
🎬 0:32:16 - The behind-the-scenes doc: For the first time ever, FA captured a full BTS look at a marketing shoot — outtakes, problem-solving, and late-day delirium included.
🐣 0:35:31 - Easter eggs and inside jokes: Dave Gandy’s blue milk toast, a deep-cut Star Wars reference, and a menu full of hidden Font Awesome-specific gems.
Links & Credits
🎥 Watch the Font Awesome 7 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmYXJGEyBXI
🎬 Check out the Behind-the-Scenes Mini Doc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3pTha-tT3c
🎵 Theme song by Ronnie Martin
🎛 Audio mastering by Chris Enns at Lemon Productions
🎤 Podcast production by Matt Johnson
🎥 Video production and behind-the-scenes doc by Isaac Chase
Got thoughts on the episode? Hit us up on social and let us know what your favorite moment was!
Now go make something awesome. 🚀🎨
Stay up to date on all the Font Awesomeness!
