Background:

By observing dog behaviours and then translating it into digital illustrations, my project aims to educate dog owners and lovers about their behaviours. This would definitely prevent unnecessary dog attacks and bites, and also, deepening the bonds between the owner and the dog. Singapore has seen a 32% increase in dog owners from 2006 to 2015. Hence, it is important for us to learn about dog behaviours before getting a dog or approaching one.

Title:

STOP. LOOK. ASSESS.
Understanding our furry friends better through their body behaviours.

Objectives:

To educate the dog lovers/potential dog owners/ current dog owners and the young about dog body behaviours and the correct way to approach a dog, thus preventing dog attacks.
To educate dog owners/potential dog owners to understand their dogs’ behaviours and thus, be able to ideally interact/care for their dogs.
Using information design to make people more aware of the different behaviours of dogs and thus, how to approach and interact with them.

Design outcome:

Brochure—Infographics
Poster

Both the poster and brochure would be a 2 in 1, hence, saving paper and effectively communicating the message to the audiences. These would likely be situated in places like the dog park, the veterinarian clinic, pet shop or even a pet cafe.

Drafts/sketches:

I wanted to make a 10-panel brochure and when you flip it, it would be the poster behind. These were my initial proposed drafts:

After consultation:

As for the brochure, the dogs don’t have to be confined in a space by itself. I can place it anywhere and make use of the space.

For the poster, there are way too many dogs and they do not bring across what I want to communicate (the dog body language and human interaction). There are way too many words as well in the poster, instead, I should explain the stop, look and access.

HELLO!

Design Philosophy:

I design in order to inspire change in society and to portray things in a more appealing manner to better communicate with my target audience. As such, they would be able to look at things in a different light or perspective. I also design in order to bring creative solutions to the table. When designing, I treat user experience seriously (e.g. paper quality, print quality) as it is important to maintain a two-way relationship between the designer and the audience.
I have always been fascinated with topics that are associated with science, mainly life sciences. Humans, animals, the environment and how they are all linked and interconnected with one another. I often find myself watching life science documentaries and being captivated. Despite being interested in science; it wasn’t my forte. But by watching all these documentaries about our environment makes me wonder if I could do anything to make the world a better place. Perhaps I can disseminate these important facts and information to educate and create awareness to my target audience. Being a designer now, allows me to bridge the gap between the audience and the environmental issues faced in today’s world. They would then be better informed about these issues and ideally, working towards a positive change. I have the liberty to create illustrations and designs that could address various serious issues in a light-hearted manner. I also tend to add a touch of humour to my projects whenever I can to make the situation merrier.

Keywords:

At first, I wanted to do something fun and exciting. My keywords were change, perspective and humour. So I had the idea of jesters, puzzles and kaleidoscope.

Below, you can see the mindmaps that I generated from my design philosophy.

The keywords that I generated from my mindmap:

Picking the most unique keyword, jester, I came up with these sketches and ideas about how my portfolio would look like. At first, I really wanted to do playing cards but it did not work out as what I wanted it to be.