SOS LYNX.ORG: TO RAISE AWARENESS FOR THE PLIGHT OF THE IBERIAN LYNX

THE HOME PAGE. EVERYTHING YOU NEED RIGHT FROM THE HOME SCREEN.
PORTUGUESE VARIANT

- BRIEF -

SOS Lynx.org is a Portuguese organisation whose mission is to raise awareness for the plight of the Iberian Lynx. At the beginning of this project it was estimated that only 150 Iberian Lynx were left in the wild; the boys and girls at SOS lynx wanted to do something about that. Initially the brief was simple: tell the world, raise awareness and collect lots of donations.

- THE GOAL -

Apart from raising awareness for the terrible drop in the wild population of the Iberian Lynx over the past 20 - 30 years, what did SOS want to achieve? The main reasons for this decline were already known, but a plan of action needed to be decided and then acted upon. Although this is beyond the scope of this case study, a captive breeding campaign was initiated alongside government lobbying with regard to Cork producers, and land was set aside to reinvigorate the rabbit population (rabbits being favoured prey of the Lynx). Also a hearts and minds campaign aimed toward local farmers was established to create habitat corridors in the hope of connecting up isolated populations separated by human encroachment.

SOSLYNX PRINTED ASSETS. PRESENTATION FOLDER, STATIONERY, BUSINESS CARDS

ASSETS REQUIRED

• Corporate ID

• Stationary

• Business cards x 4 types

• Corporate folders

• Merchandise designs

• Website (Awareness & Fundraising)

- THE BRAND -

The brief for the new brand was a list of things it would need to do, as opposed to the message we wanted to send, the goal we wanted to achieve or the emotions we wanted to evoke. The wish list was long and technical and would not be possible with one logo, but versions on a core theme would do the trick. The logo needed to include an image recognisable as the Iberian Lynx. It needed to work in full colour and black and white, in print as well as online and lend itself well to big promotion, exhibition materials, posters, promotional items and clothing. So this is how it was to be used, but what did it need to do? Firstly it needed to attract the attention it needed to inspire interest and sympathy. This would then lead on to the wider mission; to create awareness, encourage donations and for people to sign a petition or lobby an MP.

SOS BRAND, 1ST  FULL COLOUR, 2ND BLACK & WHITE POSS

The logo, incorporated within various promotional materials would ultimately lead interested parties to the website where the rest of the work could be done. It was at this point that the organisation became known as SOSLynx.org as opposed to plain old SOS Lynx. This was a small modification, but one that was cutting edge at the time - basically making the logo the domain name and the domain name the logo.

This logo was crying out for a motif to really hammer home measure. We opted to steer away from the sympathy or cute vote and decided on an image that was dynamic, majestic and purposeful. This was an animal on the brink, but which was not going to take it lying down; it was going to fight for its existence. 

The motif was based on a favourite photograph that had already seen plenty of PR action and therefore already had a strong recognition. The logo motif started with this photograph and was then traced by hand to create the 4 colour spot logo. This was vector based artwork so the logo could be resized and used for everything on the client’s wish list. After this a greyscale version was produced as well as simplified positive and negative silhouettes. Just 4 versions of the logo created in an ultimately scalable format, fulfilled the client’s criteria perfectly.

- CONCEPT / THE CREATIVE SITE -

By now we were quite attached to this project and the people running the organisation, so we decided to put a little more time and effort into this project than was budgeted for.

WEBSITE REQUIREMENTS:

•Multimedia presentation

• Inform the world of the situation and mission 

• Prominent donations page powered by PayPal

• Information porthole for downloadable .pdf monthly updates, press releases and media kits

• Photographic Gallery

• Video gallery

• SOSLynx merchandise page powers by CafePress

• Animated introduction

• Doomsday countdown clock with dynamic calendar

• Dual language options, Portuguese and English

SOS NEWS PAGE PROMINENTLY FEATURING DONATION BUTTON

We decided to build an F/S (Fullscreen) enabled interface, this meant that no matter the size of the monitor used for browsing, the website would fit full screen. Considering the importance of the project this site was deliberately kept simple with key feature sections being easily accessible from the home page. A multimedia solution was developed and built completely with Adobe Flash which would give us the scope to fulfil the client’s wish-list and build a completely seamless experience including; sound, music, video and animation as well as eliminating the need to download widgets or open content in other browser windows or websites.

MEDIA HOME SCREEN FEATURING PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO GALLERIES

PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY READY TO PLAY SLIDE-SHOW

On visiting the site visitors are presented with an animated introduction to set the mood and to divulge key information. This animation was actually extrapolated from the site and used during press conferences and played as a loop during TV interviews, both in the UK and in Europe. Particular attention was given to the gallery and video player. We had several videos to serve up and all are played in a clean and simple custom media player. Rollover the screen and the play button is revealed, rollover it again and the pause/stop button comes into view. The same media player technology was used to serve up the photo gallery. This included several additional cool functions, custom built just for SOSLynx. The Donation page is accessed via a very prominent link above the main content windows. This was designed to be easily accessible from every page. For the purposes of budget the PayPal online donation system was used.

ENGLISH HOME PAGE WITH WITH LINK TO PORTUGUESE VARIANT

This is a Portuguese issue, but interestingly the English version of the site was created first with Portuguese following after. For the purpose of budget and limitations of the technology with regard to the websites design and text layout this was built manually.

- THE RESULTS -

This website became a worldwide source of information on this subject and was featured in television interviews and magazine articles etc.  In one day SOSLynx received over 230,000 unique visitors and continues to generate online donations. We are very proud that this website is a multi award winning project, including 2 Website of the Day Awards.

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