To mark the 150th anniversary of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home
Royal Mail commissioned us to design a first day cover pack detailing the historical development of the Home from 1860 to present day, a special envelope featuring all of the stamps and a postal stamp.
‘Everyone at Battersea
Dogs & Cats Home is thrilled
that the final images truly
capture the character
of the animals chosen.’
The first day cover pack features ten ex-residents of the Home, seven dogs and three cats, who are all now in happy new homes. The photographs were taken over several days in London by the renowned animal photographer Steve Hoskins. Howard Bridges, Chief Executive of Battersea Dogs & CatsHome, said: ‘Everyone at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home is thrilled thatthe final images truly capture the character of the animals chosen.’
Here’s a couple of designs the Royal Mail didn’t decide to go with but we’d like to share them all the same. As their was little known about Mary Tealby, the founderof the Home and little visual reference, we focused on a Charles Dickens article we found to give the front some historical context as well using the name of one of this countries literary giants. We took the article, Two Dog-Shows and combined it with title graphics from the publication. Although some creative license was applied to make the layout eye-catching, the text content was taken directly from the source.
We did have the idea of printing it all on flocking and attaching a microchip to each pack but maybe we can do that next time. Here’s a few other ideas we presented.