The Overview:
The IFC Factory is a full production compound founded by rapper Jim Jones. Let’s Rap About It, a podcast which launched in September 2025 with Jim, Maino, Dave East, and Fabolous, publishes under the IFC banner and packed Terminal 5 in Manhattan for a live taping last June.
While Jim Jones was building out the IFC Factory, we were brought in to design the production environment: a setup that could hold podcast recordings, sit-down interviews, fashion and lifestyle shoots, and multi-camera productions.
The studio needed to accommodate:
Podcast recordings
Interview-style conversations
Fashion and lifestyle content
Multi-camera productions
Evolving creative needs for future projects
The Strategy:
We came in alongside DJ Sharad of the Heavy Hitters and InHouse Design, and spent a day on site with Jim.
The reference point was the archetype of a 1990s newsroom. Broadcast-style authority, built with a contemporary visual language and framed for platforms that didn’t exist then.
Much like a true news studio, we considered the distinct but connected zones: a proper news desk, a chroma-green cyclorama, and an interview setup. For the latter, we designed a clamshell-inspired layout as a form of modular staging that could be reconfigured as the productions changed so the crew could maintain camera-friendly sightlines regardless of set.
The Deliverables:
Concept sketches, technical drawings, spatial planning layouts, presentation drawings, and digital renderings of
the full production environment.
The Concepts:
Floor Plan
News Desk
