My Role

Project Director

Project Duration

10 Weeks

Description

Students in my “The Role of Graphic Design in Social Awareness” class created SNAPet, a fund-raiser for the Humane Society of Greater Savannah. SNAPet is a ‘pop-up’ pet photo shoot designed to create fun memories of peoples special friends!

SNAPet grew out of the concept of ‘pets helping pets.’ Owners would pay $5.00 to have their pet’s picture taken. We would deliver the pictures either through mail or email. Along with their picture we would also send information that promoted awareness of animals up for adoption on ways they could contribute to HSGS.

After pitching the concept to the Human Society and gaining their permission and feedback we created the branding, collateral, and marketing pieces. We also made cool props and created artistic photo options including sepia tone, Pop-Art, and illustrated backgrounds. As we had a small budget, our plan was to use as much free advertising as we could through social media and word of mouth.

To understand and perfect the service concept, the photoshoot was iterated multiple times. First in the classroom through bodystorming, a combination of role-play and simulation. This helped us to empathize with users and service providers. We now understood the number of people needed to run the event:

Sign up coordinator
Photographer
Pet stylist

And, what materials would be needed:

Order forms and pens
Table
Banner
Backdrop
Props
Camera and memory cards
Pet treats
T-shirts and bandanas (to sell)

Next we prototyped the service in Forsyth park on a Saturday morning. This helped us to find service problems that we could not foresee, such as the need for salespersons to hand out fliers and invite pet-owners to stop by and have their pets photo taken, and that we needed extra pet-stylists to help with the dogs who were more difficult to photograph than we had first thought.

The service prototypes gained fidelity over the next few weekends as we offered the service at a local PetSmart store and again at Forsyth park. In the end we raised $500 for the Humane Society, and the public response was 100% positive!

Result

Our story appeared in the Savannah Morning News and we were interviewed as guests of ‘Mid-Morning Live’ on WTOC, a local TV show hosted by local celebrities. The event branding, materials, service and marketing plan were donated to the Human Society for their use as a proprietary fundraising event. We hope that they will be able to use it in the future to carry out their mission.