Guide Dogs Australia
Which pup
are you?
A cast of goofy Labrador & Golden Retriever cartoons, built into a personality quiz that turned scrolling into awareness — and awareness into donations.
Make a life-changing cause feel warm, sharable and a little bit silly — without ever losing the message underneath.
Guide Dogs Australia is a not-for-profit that helps people with low vision and blindness live more independently — through orientation & mobility training, orthoptics, occupational therapy, assistive technology and, yes, guide dogs.1 Like every charity, its reach depends on two things that are hard to earn on social media: attention and donations.
The ask was deceptively simple: give the brand a set of illustrated dog characters playful enough to stop a thumb mid-scroll, then wrap them around a “Pup Personality” quiz that rewards people for engaging — and gently points them toward supporting the cause.
A guide dog changes a life.
The hard part is getting
someone to stop and care.
Three tensions to hold at once.
Serious cause, light touch
Low vision, waiting lists and years of training are heavy topics. The work had to be joyful enough to share without ever trivialising what’s at stake.
Engagement → action
A cute post earns a like. A quiz earns a click, a result, a share — and a moment where asking for a donation feels natural, not pushy.
One brand, many moods
Personality types, seasonal riffs, Pride, pop-culture spoofs and merch all had to feel like the same friendly dog — drawn once, stretched everywhere.
Turn the audience into the content. If the quiz is about you, you’ll finish it — and you’ll want to show your friends.
The strategy centred on a personality quiz — the “Pup-Quiz” — because it flips a charity ask on its head. Instead of “please give,” it opens with “which puppy are you?” People answer for fun, get a shareable result, and land on a thank-you that makes the connection: you’re about to change someone’s life.
Every illustration was drawn to work as a quiz answer, a stand-alone post, and a sticker — one consistent, huggable line style across the whole cast.
Five pups. Five personalities.
Each type pairs a pose, a colour and a temperament. The percentages below are the campaign’s own reported result split — how quiz-takers actually landed across the five.2
Golden Achiever
Top of the class, medal already polished. Driven, loyal and just a little bit extra.
Chill Pup-sicle
Professional relaxer. Why stand when you can lounge? Calm, cosy, unbothered.
Tail Waggers
Never met a stranger. Pure warmth with a tail that simply will not quit.
Air Bud
All four paws off the ground. Bold, sporty and up for literally anything.
Bone Appétit
Life revolves around the next meal. Joyfully, unapologetically food-first.
One line style, a forward-leaning shape kit, and a palette that pops on any feed.
Chevrons and forward arrows nod to what a guide dog does — move you forward, safely — and became a repeatable graphic device across posts.
Black & white lockups — hover (or focus) either mark to read “Guide Dogs” in Braille, a small nod to the people the brand serves.
The quiz wordmark — Fredoka at its heaviest with a single accent hyphen. Friendly and bold, it reads instantly whether it’s a headline, a button or a sticker.
Fredoka
Rounded, friendly display — headlines & the wordmark. Warm enough for a goofy cartoon, sturdy enough to stay legible small.
Figtree
Humanist body copy for captions and quiz questions — clean and approachable.
Space Mono / LABELS & DATA
Monospace for eyebrows, percentages and the “test your knowledge” UI — a small, structured counterweight to all that roundness.
Same dog, more moods.
Beyond the five quiz stars, the character library kept growing — a whole pack of personalities and poses drawn for celebrations, recruitment, seasonal posts and everyday moments, all in the same huggable line — the five quiz stars among them. Here’s the full pack, as the illustrations actually ran.
In Harness
The orange working coat — the real job behind every cartoon: a trained Guide Dog on duty, helping someone move through the world.The Litter
Three pups, a bone and a ball — the puppies-in-training where every Guide Dog begins, and a nod to the “raise a puppy” program.Big Softie
Sitting square, gentle-eyed — the calm, reassuring companion portrait at the heart of the whole set.Sitting Pretty
Square sit, front paws down, tongue out — the friendly default pose, the one that opens most posts.Tail Waggers
Curved tail mid-swing, tongue lolling — the Tail Waggers quiz star: pure warmth that simply won’t quit.Air Bud
All four paws off the ground with a dust-burst take-off — the Air Bud quiz star, bold and up for anything.Bone Appétit
Tucking into a full bowl, crumbs flying — the Bone Appétit quiz star, joyfully, unapologetically food-first.Chill Pup-sicle
Curled on a cushion, eyes shut — the Chill Pup-sicle quiz star doing what it does best: absolutely nothing.Golden Achiever
Collar, tag and a proud sit — Golden Achiever energy: top of the class with the medal already polished.All Smiles
Big open grin, eyes bright — a warm reaction face for thank-you and good-news moments.Ears Up
Ears flying, motion lines overhead — the curious, ready-for-anything face for attention-grabbing posts.Happy Dance
Up on the back legs, front paws paddling — the can’t-contain-it excitement pose.Play Bow
Front down, tail up, tongue out — the universal “let’s play” invitation.Pounce
Front-down, rear-up spring forward — caught mid-pounce, all play and no plan.Ball Chaser
Full stretch after a bouncing ball — the sporty, fetch-obsessed, high-energy pup.Full Sprint
Legs stretched flat out, ears pinned back — pure forward motion for anything urgent or exciting.Zoomies
Eyes shut, tongue out, running on pure joy — the classic no-reason-needed zoomies.Waiting for Dinner
Sat beside the bowl, eyeing it politely — the patient “is it time yet?” pose.Face First
Head fully buried in the bowl, tail up — Bone Appétit’s greedier cousin, no manners required.Curled Up
Nose to tail, fully relaxed — the cosy, low-battery pose for quiet moments.Out Cold
Flopped and snoring, a little Zzz overhead — the deep-sleep reaction for slow-news-day posts.Party Animal
Party hat on, mid-prance — the birthday-and-celebration pup for feel-good calendar posts.Top Dog
Gold crown and a huge grin — the celebratory pup for milestones, wins and “you’re a legend” moments.Super Pup
Cape and mask on — a hero riff dramatising the life-changing role a Guide Dog plays.Don’t just read about it. Play it.
A working homage to the quiz that anchored the campaign — five questions, five possible pups. Answer honestly and meet your match.
How everyone else landed — campaign’s reported split
One cast, drawn once, stretched across a whole content calendar.
A set of guide-dog-and-handler character illustrations for the awareness posts — different handlers, dogs and mobility aids to reflect a range of people the campaign speaks to.
The pay-off screen — a warm thank-you that turns a quiz result into the campaign’s real message: you’re about to change someone’s life.
Beyond the working-dog personalities, the same character got to play dress-up for calendar moments — a Pride post, and a full pop-culture cast riffing on two much-loved sagas. The whole set is below. These are original parody illustrations; the sagas and characters they nod to are trademarks of their respective owners (see the note in the footer).
The complete pop-culture set: an eight-strong sci-fi cast (masters, knights, a smuggler, a princess and a villain), a crowned pup on the throne, a seasonal Pride piece, two saga-styled brand lockups, the full ensemble line-up, a GD monogram lockup, a mic-in-paw singing pup and a beaming close-up portrait.
The cast leaves the feed — the same friendly line style carried onto branded caps and character merch, so the characters live off-screen as well as in posts.
What the goofy dogs taught me.
What worked
Building the illustrations as a system — one line style, five clear temperaments, a shared shape kit — meant a single cast could carry a quiz, a content calendar, EDMs and merch without redrawing from scratch. Consistency did the heavy lifting.
The craft lesson
“Silly” is harder than it looks. Getting a dog to read as joyful rather than sloppy took real discipline in weight, proportion and expression — a wag is two lines away from a mess.
Honest limits
I designed the illustrations and social assets; the quiz logic, copy and site build were a team effort. The interactive quiz on this page is my own homage — a faithful recreation, not the production product — and the result split shown is the campaign’s reported figure.
What I’d explore next
Short looping animations of each pup for stories and reels, an accessible non-visual version of the quiz result (this is a low-vision charity, after all), and tighter measurement tying quiz completions to donations.