Design I'm working on, thoughts?

The Crit Pit
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#1

A project I found on fakeclients. Here is the brief for anyone interested:
Good afternoon,

I am Jennifer Davies, head of the advertising committee of a large animal shelter named Safe Haven Shelter. Most of our animals are relatively older dogs, but we also give shelter to puppies, cats, and a small number of other animals. Sadly, there are currently a lot of animals that are being brought to the shelter but not a lot of adoptions. This causes our shelter to almost reach its capacity, which means we wouldn’t be able to take in any more animals. This is something we would like to prevent and therefore we are looking for someone to design us an ad for in both magazines and newspapers. The magazine ad gets to be full-page, the newspaper ad however will only get to be one-eighth of a page, which means around 5 by 3.75 inches. That means that the magazine ad can handle a lot more detail and more things on it than the other one. However, they both have to be eye-catching and very fun and happy. We want it to mention our name and website (www.safehavenshelter.com) as well as something along the lines of ‘Will you be my new family?’. It doesn’t have to be those exact words but the message has to be similar. We also want you to put some animals (mainly dogs obviously) in the ad so that the said quote makes sense. I think that is all. I look forward to your two designs and can’t wait to help our animals find a home!

Kindly,

Jennifer Davies

Anyways, I made 2 designs (as requested), 1 of a big poster and the other a newspaper thing they should be attached.
SHS-Magazine

SHS-News
Just looking for general feedback on the posters, i was going for a more swiss design approach. As that has really been inspiring me recently

#2

Committees are always red flags.

Anyway, I like the beagle. Our beagle, Rosie, is sitting right beside me as I write this.

Aside from that, there are problems with the typography, the excessive leading, the awkward red initial caps, the little afterthought photos, the scattered layout, the lack of hierarchy, and the absence of an emotional message.

Below is a pet adoption ad that works as part of a larger, coordinated branding and ad campaign.

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image1728×1988 165 KB

1 Like
#3

If I have to be honest with my feedback, I think the overall composition of the poster is pretty poor.

Typography wise, the kerning and line heights are all over the place which makes the text feeling rather disjointed.

Then there’s the issue of the layout which feels scattered and disorganized, with no clear visual flow. There are spaces that feels very cluttered, while other areas feel rather empty.

And regarding the color scheme, I think additional accents can help to keep it from looking too bland.

Overall, my suggestion is to try to look up composition guidelines such as focal points, guiding lines, visual hierarchy, as well as review your understanding of the design principles and just keep practicing.

#4

No focal point, I don’t know where to begin. It’s just so scattered. What’s up with the leading?