11.27.2010 – This lost cat poster is awesome. The details jump out, the strong typography makes the whole poster an exclamation, yet the simplicity and the fuzzy snapshot make it seem designed in five minutes to get on the streets in a hurry.
¶ This is from today so if you are in Parkdale keep an eye out for this brown and white tabby.
Designers and lost cats don’t always mix:
¶ The 27b/6 satire Missing Missy is about a designer who punishes a colleague for asking for help making a lost cat poster with a series of clever but useless efforts. It’s very funny but also makes graphic designers out to be spiteful smug pricks. Lost cat stories break my heart and I found some discussions of this post among designers infuriating, but I'm over it now.
¶ Eventually the designer serves up a workable lost cat poster.
¶ Here’s a real life example of a designer who takes this kind of bullying to the streets for his own personal amusement and promotion. Cardon Copy has hijacked a series of fliers in his neighbourhood, redesigning and replacing them, “over powering their message with a new visual language.”
¶ The lost cat poster he creates is quaint but has no urgency or specificity — the 18th century style doesn’t read as a genuine lost cat poster. It fails where the original succeeds, albeit meekly.
comments are open
There is a SCIENCE to lost pet posters. Missing Pet Partnership recommends using the 5+5+55 MPH method - five words that people can read in 5 seconds when traveling 55 MPH. LOST BLACK LAB RED COLLAR or LOST ORANGE TABBY BLUE COLLAR give a visual image when those words are in giant text and can be read. Most pet owners make the mistake of only using white 8 1/2 X 11 pieces of paper and the only word you can read from a distance are LOST CAT (or LOST DOG). When you understand "Inattentional Blindness" and the hypothesis that "there is no perception without attention" - which means if a lost pet poster does not capture the attention of drivers passing by, they won't perceive it and it will be as if it is INVISIBLE or not even there. In todays world of texting and talking drivers, using GIANT posters on NEON posterboard with BIG words that describe the dog or cat will increase the probability that many people will receive the message and that the pet will be recovered. For more details on how to make posters like this, visit MPP's web site at http://www.missingpetpartnership.org/testimonials-poster.php.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU for blogging about lost cat posters! Kat Albrecht, Founder, Missing Pet Partnership
I love that this is the first comment ever on this blog. This is exactly the kind of thing I find very interesting but would not have thought to look for. I will definitely make a follow up post in the future about this topic.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
What a wonderful blog. So happy to connect with you! I've seen this poster all over the neighbourhood and was really impressed with the design. I hope the little baby was found.
ReplyDeleteWow, thank you for introducing me to Cardon Copy. What an incredibly inventive and interactive idea (holy alliteration!) for an art project. Guy's got mad skills too.
ReplyDeleteI've found a couple of great lost cat posters around Parkdale. I especially like this one: http://catsofparkdale.blogspot.com/2010/07/help-find-nasca.html
BTW, I blogged your pix of Window Cat here: http://catsofparkdale.blogspot.com/2011/01/kevin-steele-captures-window-cat.html
Hope that's cool!!
Yes, that's very cool, and thanks for the link to another interesting local lost cat poster.
ReplyDeleteMust use some latest stuff so that you will able to meet soon again with your loved one Lost and found
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