My primary audience for this infographic is parents with children who are on the fence about getting a pet. Perhaps their children have been begging them to get one, but feel that they are too big a responsibility in their busy lives. Considering the bundles of energy that is a kitten or puppy, this is an understandable sentiment. However, this situation offers a unique opportunity to support the adoption of older cats, which are notoriously overlooked and a usual victim of euthanasia. Many people do not realize the extent of animal euthanasia, which is especially prominent for cats since there exist many strays. So, this infographic has a dual purpose: to inform this audience why senior cat adoption is a suitable option for their circumstance and to spread awareness of euthanasia.
Right away, the title “Senior Cats Need Your Help” along with the cat hanging off the edge of the divider alerts the viewer and catches their attention to keep reading. The graphic has three main sections which all note either a fact or advantage of adopting an older cat. The first section hits on the surprising euthanasia statistics concerning cats; this is paired with the visual of a cat locked behind bars. Its goal is to invoke a feeling of pity among the viewer so that they realize adoption isn’t just about bringing home another family member, but also about saving a life. If the previous section wasn’t enough to convince the viewer, the next section describes the low-maintenance lifestyle of a cat, which is accompanied by a visual of an independent cat walking down a road. This portion appeals to the more busy audience. Finally, the last section incorporates the family aspect of adoption, speaking to parental concerns about how a cat will treat their children. I’ve added an image of a cat laying on its back to show how harmless most cats can be, as well as show just one example of the quirky personalities contained within cats. Besides these sections, there is a paw print border and several cat-shaped silhouettes interacting with the headers, which set the animal theme. Lastly, on the bottom there is an American Humane Society logo, so that the viewer has some resource to follow up on after viewing the infographic.
Each visual component of the sections was made in the same way; I image-traced each picture, then masked them with a circle object. To divide each topic, I used the pen tool to draw straight and bold borders. Since infographics tend to have a border, I made one out of paw prints. I did this by first tracing over a reference paw print with the pen tool, creating the pattern, then adding it to my color swatches. From here, I gave the background rectangle a thick stroke and changed the color to the new pattern. Having the pattern as the stroke color ended up cutting off some of the paw prints, so I used photoshop to eliminate the paw prints which were cut off. Jutting in from the sides of the image are three headers, which contain the title of the sections. I made them contrast the background with gray and yellow to add variety and make the visuals more exciting and organized. Also, multiple cat silhouettes populate the image, either hanging from or resting on top of them. I made these by image-tracing them as a sketch, which was very effective since it helped sharpen the blurriness of the low-quality images.
I found that illustrator was a very interesting but frustrating program to learn. Although this project aimed to focus on illustrator, I personally feel like it is a program best integrated with other software like photoshop. For example, I could see myself using illustrator to create assets to be used in a photoshop project, which is probably an intended practice from adobe. Besides this, though, I can really appreciate the work that goes into graphic design since I thought this project was pretty difficult and time-consuming to pull off. By seeing other people’s work, you really can’t tell what sort of challenges the creator must have gone through. On the content side of this project, I learned more things about cat euthanasia and just how frequent it is. Since I’ve been a cat enthusiast my whole life, you can imagine these were sad statistics for me to see.
My plans for the next project are similar to my plans coming into this project. I feel I didn’t exactly meet my own expectations this time around, but I can change things up by dedicating more time to the thought process. Like last time, I will begin thinking of my audience and purpose along with the project concept much earlier so I have as much time as possible to work on it. I wanted to get at least two rounds of feedback for this project, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to finish my second draft at a reasonable time before the deadline. So, for the next project, I want to make sure I get both rounds of feedback at a reasonable time so I can have an even better final draft. Lastly, I want to find more specific tutorials for my project plan during the practice phase. I think I did a good job of this for the photoshop project, but most of my tutorial choices for this project did not help me with the final product. For example, I had to find many resources and tutorials during the graphic’s creation since the tutorials didn’t prepare me for the ideas I had planned.