Getting Feedback on card Designs

Looking at the two layouts I feel that it is best to use the Larger image and larger big box of text. It is easier to learn about the dog from a solid block of information rather than to have small amounts included in the game area. Also it is important to see the dog clearly as looks is a main factor that makes a person drawn to a dog.

 After discovering that too many colours did not work well I decided on the primary colours as they work well together and are bright and fun. The yellow is the dogs trust colour I was given in the brief.

I have two different colour combinations which is gender neutral for boy and girl dogs. Together in a pack of cards there would be these two variations along with 30 plus different dogs with their information. 

Feedback

• You should try creating symbols for the categories to make it more engaging
• Colours are youthful and almost British 
• However the colours can almost overpower the image
• Type needs to be more away from the edges 
• Break it up more, its looking a little flat.

All of this feedback was useful as I found I could work with the contrast of photography and colour so I am going to experiment with some more layout.

Layout and Colour Development

 I looked at creating some layouts of how I can set out my card game. I need to include quite a lot of information on a card that can be readable to younger people.

The card should include information that is important to know when getting a dog.
For example

• How much exercise it needs
• Its personality
• If it needs grooming
• Is it good with children and other dogs

plus more.

After looking at the patterns on the website I looked at including patterns to the background of my cards to make it more engaging and fun. I want the cards to have fun colour schemes which are bright but also include a lot of the Dogs Trust Yellow.

I created a simple pattern with bones and lines so it would not be to cluttered making the information hard to read. I tried using many colours on a card however it made the writing harder to read and the colours began to clash this is when I knew I needed to limit my colours used.

Game ideas and Crit

I have came up with two game ideas for a campaign, one is print and another is Online.

My Online game is a matching game. There are two sets of cards, families and dogs they both have descriptions about them. To play the game you need to read the descriptions and match the families to their perfect dog.

I created some initial ideas of what the cards would look like, however I think I would draw the families so I would not take others photography.

I also created some simple wireframes of what it would look like online

After the game it would encourage you to look on 

the website to find a dog that best fits your family.

My printed game is a inspired by Top Trumps, The cards include real dogs from the website and have short descriptions. There are categories with numbers so you can play against someone. But as well as that it gives information you should take into consideration when getting a dog. I created a basic design. Something that I considered about this idea is that I didnt want to label one dog as being better than another through numbers, therefore for every dogs card the numbers all add up to 100!

You would be able to buy the whole card set online however I also like the idea of having one card included in the packaging of household objects, for example toilet roll and bread. Therefore families will randomly find the cards after there shop and this will bring the dogs trust to there attention. They can collect the whole card set by doing this, or this will make them go online to buy the set and there they will see the real dogs that can be sponsored or adopted.

Getting Feedback

After creating some mock up ideas I felt that I should get some feedback to wether this was a good campaign idea. I showed my games and asked which people liked the most and wether I had the right tone of voice for a campaign. This was the feedback I received;

• They felt my idea was unique as a campaign as most campaigns are posters, leaflets and videos.
• They felt my idea was engaging and fun for families
• They felt that I should have many games both online and digital. 

After this feedback I feel that I should develop both games but also come up with ideas of what to call the campaign and how to make it visually appealing and readable. It helped to see that I was moving in a good direction within this project.

Research into family games.

Now I know that my target audience is families I wanted to do some research into popular family games. Board games and card games were the most popular. There were many common factors within the games.

• An element of competition 
• A lot of the games include cards 
• Knowledge or strartegy 

Something that was also important to my research was wether to do a online game or a physical game. Online games are popular with children however not as much for family playing. Physical games are much more popular for getting families to play together and have fun.

Creating a board game would not be practical as it would cost more Money to make and people would have to buy it to own it which would not have as big of an audience as intended. 

Therefore I want to create a card game inspired by Top Trumps an already popular family game.
A card game is better than a board game as it is easier to incorporate information which is the main outcome of the dogs trust campaign to promote the dogs to families. Also if someone has something physical which is useful and fun they are a lot more likely to keep it and have it in their mind rather than throw it away. The designs are also able to include photography and fun bright colours which are engaging to a younger audience and fun for all ages.

Involving Children

Looking on the gods trust website they do a lot of work with Children teaching them the do's and don'ts of dogs. They also have some online games.

 I think online games are a great idea because they are engaging however these games teach children how to look after dogs and are quite basic games that do not promote actual dogs that need homes, They are also for younger children.

I would like to create some games as a fun campaign to promote the real dogs.

I am going to aim my games at families and not just children as it is important that everyone in a family is educated about the dogs and all have a say in what they like. Within My campaign I want to promote that a Dogs Trust dog is a perfect member of a family and a important part of the home. I want to explore games that are both online but also physical.

First Stage Idea Generation

Creating idea generation I wanted to list all possibilities of what I could do for a campaign while taking into consideration my main theme which is being able to feature the real dogs which are in the centres throughout the country and also to show them as vital members of a family.

A first thought was to create a poster campaign which features dogs however its disadvantages is you cannot feature many dogs as there would likely not be many over 5-8 posters. An idea which will change this is to create a book with many dogs, however this could cost money to create and why would people pick up or buy this book when all the information is free online?

Another more successful idea is to create Digital formats that are fun to interact with and on the Dogs Trust Website however there needs to be a way to get the person to the website and to encourage them to take the first step to interacting. A fun thing to think about is creating a game as that promotes families communicating with each other and means the campaign would have a bigger target audience. Merchandise could be a fun ideas however is hard to get right and fit to fashion and a large target audience.

I want to explore more before following one of these campaign themes. 

Rehoming Dogs Research

https://www.statista.com/statistics/308229/estimated-pet-population-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

The dog is the most popular pet in Britain, statistics show 24% of the population own a dog. There is an estimated 54 million dogs in Britain in 2017.

Some shocking statistics from dogs trust

• The Stray Dog Survey reveals 47,596 dogs were heartlessly left behind in council pounds, where they remained unclaimed by their owners

• Dogs Trust never puts a healthy dog down, but 5,142 stray dogs were put to sleep by UK Local Authorities between 2014 and 2015, that’s one dog every two hours.

Dogs Trust are good at pulling at the heart strings bring emotional filmed advertisements and content aimed at families. I want my target audience to also be families however due to this fact I want my Campaign to be more lighthearted and fun especially to families with children.

On the Dogs Trust website I expected there to be a big use of yellow. However there was a a lot of vibrant colours and some fun patterns to compliment each section of information. I like these patterns as they feel engaging to a wide audience, I want to use pattern like this within my designs.

Previous Ikea Campaign

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBka2eF4OAI

Although this is not a Dogs Trust Campaign I have taken some inspiration from this interesting and unique campaign aiming to find homes for homeless dogs.

They created a video showing cardboard cut outs of dogs in the home scenes in Ikea. You could scan the dog and 'order' it like the furniture. This was a clever way of showing people they can complete there home with a dog.

I really liked this campaign as I like they are showing dogs of members of a family and part of a home. I need to find a way of advertising some of the dogs in the trust which will make people want to go onto the website and look through all of the dogs finding the perfect one for them to adopt, foster or sponsor.

Picking the YCN Dogs Trust Brief

When I saw the brief to create a campaign for rescue dogs I was immediately drawn as I thought it was such a good cause. I love to create things that make a difference to lives and make people happy. It is so important to help dogs find homes giving them a more fulfilled life.

I want to create a fun campaign that you can play with or use but also that involves families and dogs create great members of a family and can change lives for the better.

After reading through the guidelines I am understand that Dogs trust have very strong guidelines and rules when it comes to design. This is good and I am not usually used to following such strict rules when it comes to colour, logo and type therefore I will need to think about this while creating all my designs.