Dog Owners Off Leash

Dogs in the City of Bayside are concerned that their owners are walking the streets unrestrained. They are worried that their owners might get lost, hit by a car or in a fight with another owner.
If owners get caught breaking the law, dogs can’t pay the fine so they are worried about being sent to the pound.

In Bayside, there are very pet-friendly and not-so-pet-friendly parks and beaches where dogs and owners can play but it seems some owners get confused about when and where they are allowed walk with their dog on or off-leash. Other owners are poorly trained.

Dogs need your help to control their not-so-furry friends and the City of Bayside wants a campaign to reach out to reckless owners.
There are plenty of signs that explain on and off-leash responsibilities but dogs can read and some owners ignore them. — Prompt Overview.

Concept: Convince dog owners in the City of Bayside to understand and follow their responsibilities.
Media: Outdoor Posters & Social Media.
Audience: Dog owners in the City of Bayside.
Key Messages:

• Know your responsibilities as a dog owner.
• Always walk your dog on a leash unless you're in a designated off-leash area.
• You must have control of your dog at all times.
• You should take dog waste bags and pick up after your pet.

Ideation and Development

To start this project I wanted to better understand who exactly we were speaking to. According to PetStays, the typical dog owner is between 30 to 45 years of age.
The prompt encouraged a light tone and I tried to consider the kind of humour that fits the demographic that is likely to be reached. Ultimately I landed on something that wasn't too far off the original prompt text (which involved text from the dog's point of view). I thought, "What if dogs were more sophisticated than their owners?" Which lead me to the classic 19th and 20th century art of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. His art featuring dogs enjoying human social pleasantries was too good to ignore. While A Friend in Need (1903) was the core inspiration, I decided to expand outside of just poker-playing pooches for the broader campaign idea.

Further Development

Once again I leveraged a series of Adobe Stock images and some light photo editing to complete the final poster concept. Let's start with a failed experiment (and why I can't be trusted to digitally paint anything).

Starting with this image as a base I wanted to construct my own "dogs playing poker" illustration. I was able to get about this far...

If I had managed my time better I may have had the flexibility to develop the illustrated style further. Lacking in time, however, I decided to leverage the fact that every "dog playing poker"-type image was over 100 years old putting them all in the creative commons.

My final concepts each utilised the above images. The former for the final poster design and the latter for an Instagram mockup (below).

Final Concepts & Refining

Using Adobe InDesign I put together the final concepts. The campaign uses familiar imagery to sell a variety of messages that achieve the goals of the council.