The Dog Owner's Manual
Client: Quirk Books
Recognition: American Illustration, Communication Arts Design Annual, AIGA 365, AIGA's 50 Books/50 Covers, Print's Regional Design Annual
After the runaway success of The Baby Owner's Manual, Quirk Books wanted to capitalize on the humorous, appliance manual approach for other subjects. The Dog Owner's Manual was the next logical step, as they are the most popular pet both in the US and globally.
We utilized a lot of the same design conventions and user manual terminology from Baby, but also grew the overall brand by adding new elements, such as a specific dog breed for each of the chapter openers.
Another new feature we added to this series was the top models section, where we came up with fun packaging for the most popular breeds.
A fun fact about this project is that, while working on it, I was inspired to adopt a Boston Terrier named "Huxley" whom I added to many illustrations in the book.
Another fun fact was that this chapter opener, featuring two pugs doing "it like they do on the Discovery Channel", to quote the Bloodhound Gang, had to be toned down for the Discovery Store, who found it too offensive. You can still purchase the book with this spicy version in most other stores.
Like The Baby Owner's Manual, this book was also a huge success and, in addition to 9 more spinoff titles, it also spawned other products such as The Dog Owner's Maintenance Log.
