Sydney Dogs and Cats Home

Lost, abandoned and abused, are words that pull on our heart strings when it comes to animals. Animal Shelters provide a valuable service to society, by giving a second chance in life for many of these creatures. But, just like many charities and not-for profits, they focus too much on worthiness and pity, as a means to connect with people and encourage adoption and donations. For almost 70 years, Sydney Dogs and Cats Home has been a not-for-profit sanctuary, rehoming up to 3000 dogs and cats each year. With a constant focus on the day-to-day running of the shelter, they inevitably fell into the standard sector approach. Their communications felt jumbled and lacked the stature and impact required to engage the public on the larger purpose of the shelter, and the positive impact of adopting animals.

With a recent forced move, it became clear that the shelter needed to change the way it engaged with it’s supporters and the wider public – one that emphasises the positivity and joy that animals can bring us. They needed to drive greater awareness of the adoption programme, and the larger set of community programs they run, pairing rescue animals with some of our communities at-risk humans, aged care, mental health, and disability care. These combined activities would help put the purpose of Sydney Dogs and Cats Home at the forefront of people’s minds, and hopefully generate support and donations to help build a new facility and continue their work for decades to come.

We set about changing the experience people have with the shelter, online and onsite. We focussed on making it easier to search, fall in love and share the animals with friends and family. Highfiving them for their donations and clarifying the importance of every contribution. We developed a new identity that would work much more broadly and – importantly – celebrate the animals that came through their doors everyday.

A versatile identity system was put in place to work across all manner of communications, with a boldness and clarity of message, whilst making sure playfulness was embedded throughout. With each animal, on average, passing through the shelter within 2 weeks, we wanted spotlight every animal past, present and future through the new identity. Upon entry, each animal is photographed in their best light, capturing the true personality of each animal and giving them the best chance possible of finding their new home. Their physical information in the submission form helps to generates a new cat or dog icon that is then incorporated into the brand whilst giving each animal it’s own logo. This enables personalised merchandise opportunities and social media profiles post adoption, providing each animal it’s own social status in a world of animal and celebrity obsession. By changing the way this animal shelter sees itself, they are able to change the way they interact with people, and turn change the relationship people have with their animals.