Podcasting Momentum

Fix Your Podcast Set Design And Save Your Personal Brand From Bad Backgrounds

• Pedal Stomper Productions - Josh Troche

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Your podcast studio speaks before you do. What's it saying about your personal brand?

In this episode, we dive deep into creating an intentional podcast set design that elevates your message and connects with your audience. Whether you're broadcasting from a spare bedroom or investing in a full-blown virtual studio, your podcast aesthetics matter more than you think.

We break down everything from camera framing and room lighting tips to zoom background tips that don’t make you look like a floating head. Discover the role of branding visuals, background setup strategies, and sound treatment essentials that give your voice the clarity it deserves.

You’ll also get practical advice on DIY podcast studio setup, podcast lighting that flatters, and how minimal set design can still be visually striking. We share insights on how to reflect your personality and professionalism on screen, without blowing your budget.

This episode is packed with podcast production tips to align your visuals with your content and grow your personal brand.



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We've all seen it. You show up to a zoom call, or you show up to watch a podcast, or you show up, just you see a video clip of someone and you can't help but stare at their background because there's just something so atrocious about it that you just can't take your eyes off of it. And you have completely ignored what the person said because of it. This week, we are going to make sure that you are not the person that is that problem. Stay tuned for it. Oh, set design is a big thing and it's something that most people do not give enough thought to. We've all seen it where someone looks like they're in a closet because they're like, back is against a wall. We've seen it where someone has just a ton of clutter behind them. We've seen it where there's like a weird office, like, open area behind him, and there's all these people milling about. We've seen so many bad things. And what's funny about that is, is we don't always, like, instantly call them out. We do know it does make us feel uncomfortable, and it does bring the quality down just that notch in here in the studio. I mean, we've got the curtains behind me there so you can see that that and I mean, you can see there's distance here. Additionally, there's a corner right there, but you can't see it because of the curtains. We talked a little bit about this before. We're going to go deeper into that set design this week. Because when we talked about looking good on camera, we had a number of people reach out and say, hey, can you go deeper into that set design so that by popular request is what we're going to cover. First thing I want to talk about is, why does this matter? It's a podcast. Who cares? I'm going to get right to that. I mean, right up front, it's your brand 100%. It is your brand. Whether it's you as a person or you as a business or both. It is your brand. So if you want some like crappy bookshelf with disorganized books on it or this disheveled desk or whatever behind you as your brand, I guess that's fine. The same sense you know where I'm going to go next. Those terrible zoom backgrounds and other backgrounds that cut off half of your head, or you will see part of a cat walk through, or you will see like an arm or half the microphone or whatever it is. Those, those terrible green screen quote unquote backgrounds have got to go. Stop it with them. They're they're bad. They're awful. Do not do them unless you have a well-lit, specific green screen behind you. At which point we could talk about that a little bit later. What's another reason why this matters? You've seen me in both studios. You've seen me here. You've also seen us in the Cuyahoga Falls studio. In fact, you've seen me in three different studios. You've also seen me in the studios that I used to teach at at Cuyahoga Community College. You've seen us in all of those, but with that, there's a consistent brand that sticks with you. I'm recognizable there. The setup, you know it. Even though it's different. It feels very familiar, and that's intentional. We wanted different setups for people, but we want it to feel familiar. Why? So we have a consistent identity every single time. When you see it's me and you see the stuff behind me. You're you've got a good idea of what to expect. We don't want people to have a lot of questions about what to expect when it comes to the podcast. The questions about what to expect should be in the story and should be in the topic, not who's going to present or how they're going to present. Or I mean, what it's going to sound like. Those should be the very consistent things. What does that consistency bring for you? Well, that consistency brings that professional the professionalism. And it brings credibility. If you've got something that's visually engaging yet not distracting, that shows you put thought into what you're doing. It shows that you put effort into what you're doing. And really, that's what I believe you as the audience want. You want to know that I put the effort in on this. You want to know that I care enough to try to to to put things together for it. This type of backdrop does that. And like I said, I've talked about it before. A bookshelf, a nicely organized bookshelf can do the same thing. We've used all sorts of backgrounds with stuff like that. You could do it in a in an automotive shop if you want. If you can get it quiet there, you could do it there as long as it's organized in neat. And once again, it presents how you want your brand to present. This is this really. It is just a big key of branding. That's why we've got the television screen in here too. So we can put brand logos up on the screen. You've seen it. If you've watched any one of the a number of the other podcasts that we produce right here in the studio, we always make sure that there's that consistent branding with it. So with all that being said, I mean, how should you go about designing this backdrop? I mean, there's a there's some things that you want to consider. And once again, it's make sure first off that it's going to go off of your audience preferences. If let's face it, I referred to the automotive shop here. If you're knitting, that's probably not the right backdrop for you. Vice versa, you shouldn't be in like a yarn store. If you've got an automotive podcast. Do something that fits with your brand and your audience, what they would like to see, what they will find visually appealing. Our podcast in here, I mean, this is this is brighter. This is a little bit more upbeat. The stone here gives it a little bit of a cooler feeling. Not cool as in like Joe. Cool, but cool as in temperature wise. And we're good with that. The reason why the other studio that we have has the wood back to it, is because we wanted that to have a warmer feeling. The wood gives that a warmer feeling, and it's a little bit darker because the curtains are a little bit darker in there too. Here they're more of a gray. And that studio, it's black. Once again, those were intentional choices there because we were looking for that warm, slightly darker feel with the subjects well lit. Typically, most audiences will see that as just fine. Now let's talk about like there's like I said, the podcast that we had worked with before. He had books behind him. He talked about coaching. He obviously wanted to stay up on the latest trends. To have those books. There is is a good thing. It shows that he's well read. It shows that he's keeping up on things. That's once again plays into that audience. Additionally, I mean, when we look there's a there's another medical podcast that we're looking at. That one, it's got a I guess I would say it's a nice background, a little bit more sterile, a little more like a doctor's office. Once again, it's not completely blank. It's not like he's being shoved in this closet. But what it is, is it's appealing to that type of audience that they are looking for. What I want you to do is I want you to look at likes, go through and look at YouTube, look at other podcast designs, other podcast sets, see what they have. Take the ideas from there. The one thing that I want to warn you about, a lot of them are using these bright, vibrant colors in the background and those are awesome. They can look great. Just make sure that you are controlling that light. So that way you don't turn purple or you don't turn blue. Those are things that you need to kind of keep in mind. The simpler that you can keep it, the easier it is to manage the the the additional side of that is once again, if, let's say this is your home office, you can use that to its dual purpose. Now. Let's say it's your let's say it's your office in the office once again, that nice backdrop if you're having people come in. The office serves dual purpose. So keep an eye on those types of things. The the other thing, I mean, we all look at interior design trends. If someone walks in and you've got this giant steel desks, that's just barely postwar. Well guess what? You realize maybe that's not the right thing for an upbeat, modern podcast. The biggest thing that I would say with this is when you're when you're setting things up like that, when you're looking at those types of things. Keep it. Maybe more on the simple side. The cleaner you can keep it, the fewer distractions that you have for your audience, the better. A lot of times we find that movement in the background can be very distracting, so it's something that we'd probably want to keep out of that podcast, out of that background. I've seen people where they have windows behind them and they'll be in their office. They've got a window behind them that looks out into like a bullpen type setup. Those are often very busy, and that can be distracting to whoever's on the podcast. It can also be very distracting to whoever you're talking to. So with that, make sure you're you're you're keeping that in mind and look around you as you set things up. Set the camera up and look around you to see what's behind you, see what's around you. You may be surprised at what's there and what you should move around. I cannot harp on this next thing enough. That lighting is key. You don't need a big, expansive, expensive camera setup like what we've got here in the studio. You just don't necessarily need that. You can get 80% of the results with 20% of the cost. As long as long as you light things correctly. Window lighting can offer a soft, natural light, but the problem is, is I typically try and steer people away from windows at all costs. Because the problem is, is you never know when a cloud is going to come by. The lighting outside can very much dictate the mood inside that you're going to have. What happens if you've got this podcast that's very serious and maybe a little bit more down in terms of tempo, and it's a bright, sunny day outside. Then the next week you're recording a podcast and let's say it's raining cats and dogs outside. It's dark. It's a little bit kind of like blue. And you're recording this. Episodes are supposed to be really fun. It's the fact that you've lost control of that lighting. That lighting can dictate a lot of the mood, and if it's not in sync with what you're trying to do, that can be an issue. So with that, the other thing I'll say to is, is make sure that you are not having brighter lights behind you than in front of you. Keep bright lights in front of you. That way you don't turn into a silhouette. We all remember 60 minutes growing up when they had someone that was in the witness protection, or someone they didn't want their identity revealed. And what did they do? They put the bright lights behind them, so they turned into a silhouette and they also disguised their voice. Don't be that person in a podcast. Of course, unless you're in the witness protection program, then I would by all means encourage you. We talked about three point lighting, the key light, the fill light and back light for consistent, flattering looks. Soft lighting is going to help you quite a bit. Make sure you do that. Something else that we'll talk about here is the sound we talked a little bit about, like the foam panels and stuff like that. You don't necessarily need foam panels all over the room. We have them in, I would say two thirds of this office, this studio here. We've also got the curtain back here that helps deaden a lot of that sound. Good quality microphones close to your face really help to to eliminate some of the possibilities of echoes. The other thing is, is make sure like if you can hang curtains in a room, do that. A bookshelf with books where it's going to bounce the sound in all sorts of crazy directions where it's not going to focus it back. Not necessarily a bad thing either. So keep keep those things in mind when it comes to it. You do not want to have this big blank, empty wall across the across behind your camera. If nothing else. Hang a canvas panel over there that'll soak up quite a bit of that sound and deaden that. You can also hang panels from the ceiling. There's some really neat acoustic panels out there that are decorative, that you can hang from the ceiling. That will help soak up some of that sound, to make sure that you're not getting issues when it comes to that. The biggest thing is make sure that when you're doing the sound design on your room, make sure that it fits with the visual design of your room. I know a lot of people that will put the foam panels behind them, and I'm kind of thinking, great, you're trying to establish you're in in a studio, but those foam panels aren't really going to do anything. You'd be better off having the bookshelf back there, or better off having car parts on a shelf back there, or better off whatever it is you do have, maybe put awards back there. Those are always great to have behind you. Just show the show those trophies off. Make sure you dust them though. The biggest thing that I want to say is functionally quiet. You don't want loud echoes and you want some sound deadening to it. If you've got an outside wall that sometimes noisy, maybe that's the one where you put your bookshelf, because that will help soak up some of that sound too. This is once again, this is the set design of both sound and the visual side of it. I want and what you have to do with that is now that we've kind of covered both of those, is make sure that both pieces are something that you consider. You're like, hey, I've got a big whiteboard. I'll put that behind the camera. So that way I can put my notes there. Well, the problem is, is that's going to reflect that sound back. So once again, it could could help with a set in terms of visually for you to have cues. But it could be a giant headache for you. When it comes to the sound of your podcast that we've we've talked about it all the time. People will listen to or people will watch bad video all day long. They will not stay around for bad audio. I do it all the time. I scroll podcast just to hear what's going on, the find new podcast, discover new things all the time, and as soon as it sounds like someone's talking into a toilet tank, I'm out. I just can't do it. Two more big things that I want to cover with this actually, is the the. We talked last week about mastering your frame, putting the camera right in the right spot. Eyeline. Avoid weird angles. If you're looking down on the camera, you're condescending, you're overbearing. If you're looking up to the camera, well, maybe you don't have the authority. Maybe you're appearing small. Make sure that you're looking at those types of things so there's not an issue with it. Your head room have a little bit of room above your head, but not too much. I don't want the top of your head down here. Rule of thirds. Stick with that and make sure that you are making intentional choices and not just plopping the camera down, flipping it on, and walking away. When it comes to setting your up your set, there's a reason why there's set designers out there that make very, very good money. It's a skill. It's a talent. It's like any other interior or exterior design thing. People will see things, people will know things, and they can make those big tweaks for you. They can also make those small tweaks for you. But like most things, you can get 80% of the way there with 20% of the effort. When it comes to stuff like this, I'm not saying take shortcuts, I'm saying know where your limits should be on that. Utilize some DIY techniques. I mean, let's face it, not everyone's going to have the skills to do everything. But when it comes to some of the foam tiles, like on a wall, if you've got an echo problem, tiles, some double stick tape, most people are going to be able to peel and stick. Spend the time to do that. If you hire a handyman to do that, that's going to get expensive. There are a ton of online resources that can talk about like, hey, if you like this, look, go for this. If you like that look, go for that. And a ton of great budget ideas. The other thing that I'm going to tell you, and this is the biggest one. Rent or borrow some props, cameras, things of that nature before you buy. Try them out. Do I like how this looks? Yeah. Great. Don't set things up and think, oh my God, this is permanent. Do something to make sure that you're trying it. So what are the final tips that we've got here? I mean, just to kind of rehash some of this to to create this dynamic set that's going to represent your brand. First off, visual interest, make sure that there's something interesting about it. It's once again going to refer to these curtains. They're not distracting but there's texture to it. Same thing with this stone wall. It's not distracting but there's texture to it. There's interest to it. Once it's not what draws your eye, but it still has that interest to it. Remove natural light whenever you can. Get your own light. Spend a couple of bucks on doing that. A good size ring light will work wonders for lighting you up and making you look good. Make sure that your set looks the part of your brand. It should. It should cover what you want it to. Like I said, if you've got an automotive brand, great. Have have some car parts in the background. If you have, if doing a podcast on knitting, have a big ball of yarn, maybe a big basket of yarn right in the center of the table with a couple of needles sticking out of it. Those are the types of things that make sure I mean, or had the basket right up here in the corner. I mean, any way you look at it. Make sure that you are reflecting the theme, the branding of your podcast. And once again, go ahead and put that logo up someplace. Control your audio and video as you're designing stuff. Make sure that you are thinking about, hey, how's the video going to look? And if you don't know how it's going to look. Try it. Set the camera up real quick and be like, hey, what's it look like here? Great. Bad. No, what what are we doing? The. Those are the types of things. Be. But be intentional about it. That is the biggest, biggest thing is be intentional about everything that you have in that camera frame, in that room, in terms of sound. If you are intentional about it, that is the thing that is going to show through, and that is where your audience is going to pick up and say, you know what? This person has their stuff together that is what separates someone from doing this on their couch in their basement, from the people that take it to the next level, that are making money with it and using it as a tool for their business. Speaking of which, if you want some more tools for your business, go to Paddle Stopper productions.com and sign up for our newsletter when the podcast comes out. Typically, we expand on what we talked about in the podcast because we want to make sure that we're giving you some added value and some added tools to run with every week, right. Come on. It's a simple decision. That all being said, I really appreciate you coming along for the ride. I would love to hear some of the questions that you have about set design. We I mean, we have our no pitch podcast consultation. If you want us to just show up and say, hey, look, I love how your set looks. I hate how your set looks. Or if you have questions about it, let's sit down and talk about it. That is on the website. Also, make sure you go sign up for that. I would love to talk to you. As always, do me a favor. Take care of yourself if you can, take care of someone else too, and I will see you very, very soon.

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Josh Troche

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