Golden Years

Published in

TylerGAID

7 min readDec 14, 2023

Adopt A New Old Friend Today!

Nestled in the Manayunk neighborhood in Philadelphia, Golden Years stands as a beacon of hope and warmth for senior dogs who are ready for retirement. With its cozy ambiance, the café offers an atmosphere of compassion and companionship, dedicated to the well-being of aging canine friends. The heartbeat of Golden Years lies in its rescue efforts, serving not just as a café but also as a sanctuary for senior dogs looking for their forever homes.

As a foster based rescue, volunteers and staff members tirelessly work to provide these dogs with the care and attention they deserve, ensuring they are healthy, happy, and ready to be adopted. Visitors and prospective adopters are meant to spend quality time with the dogs within the café, allowing for meaningful interactions, creating a bond that goes beyond the conventional shelter setting.

Golden Years aims not only to find homes for these senior dogs, but also strives to share the joys and rewards of adopting older animals. As visitors sip their coffee and share moments of joy with senior dogs, they become part of a greater mission: making the twilight years of these furry friends truly golden.

Concept Development

The idea for Golden Years Senior Dog Café spawns from a deep love and care about the wellbeing of animals, especially those older in age or with special needs. While working at a doggy daycare and boarding facility for three years, I had the privilege to work daily with dogs from all walks of life, aged from puppyhood to over 20 years-old. I loved hearing adoption and rescue stories from pet parents, and often had the opportunity to aid in finding forever homes for foster pups who came into our care. During these times, I noticed how much more difficult it is to get an older dog adopted compared to their younger counterparts, resulting in longer times spent in a shelter for senior dogs.

Golden Years aims to remedy this issue by providing a sanctuary that not only places older dogs in comfy houses through a foster program, but also encourages the public to spend time with these senior dogs and adopt them into loving homes where they can spend their “golden years.”

As a brand, Golden Years focuses on blending the coziness of a visit to grandma and grandpa’s house with a clean and vintage design aesthetic that audiences will find warm and inviting.

Logo

The logo is the face of any brand, so it was important for me to spend time getting Golden Years’ just right. Earlier iterations of the logo were more playful in design, but as the brand developed, the logo began to go in a more sophisticated direction, inspired by the styles of vintage coffeehouse logos.

Since the name of Golden Years doesn’t immediately call to mind anything dog related, I wanted to showcase motifs of a dog silhouette and a dog tail within the main logo.

Choosing a complimentary font also took a fair amount of experimentation. A serif font clashed with the logo font, but a sans serif, while capturing the friendliness of the brand, felt too modern. The sweet spot ended up being a slab serif, adding a balance between something old-fashioned and modern — a perfect reflection of the brand as a whole.

Brand Identity

Since the branding for Golden Years maintains a vintage but friendly aesthetic, the colors used had to work in harmony with that concept. Drawing inspiration from “sweaters you would see your grandfather wear,” the color palette for Golden Years uses warm-toned colors of cream, green, and mahogany, with shades of blue being used as stand-out colors. And, of course, a lustrous gold is incorporated as well.

These colors are seen used in all the patterns, from the take on a classic argyle print to the more illustrative “happy old dogs” pattern. The pattern featuring the illustrated dogs showcase an important style for the brand, with elements of line art similar to that found in the aforementioned pattern appearing throughout the branding.

Environment & Advertising

Golden Years Senior Dog Café runs its business out of a homey in a homey and spacious environment, with a fenced backyard that is large enough for our dogs to go inside and outside as they please. The atmosphere is warm and inviting to patrons and senior dog residents, with sections designated for seating while you enjoy a drink or a bite, and areas intended solely for bonding with our resident seniors.

Since Golden Years’ mission is to adopt out senior dogs to loving forever homes, advertising to a broad number of people is essential, which is why an eye-catching billboard was also designed.

The menu for Golden Years remains simple and clean, designed to be printed double-sided on 4 x 9 inch card stock. The intent behind this decision was to make it a portable menu, one that could be taken outside of the café and hung on a fridge or given out to other potential visitors who may be interested in stopping by for a visit.

Additionally, careful thought was put into the items featured on the menu. There are a number of ingredients often used in food products that can be harmful to dogs if consumed, such as chocolate, which is a popular item found in many typical café drinks or pastries. Taking that into consideration, this menu offers food and drinks that are made using dog-safe ingredients, like a yogurt-based icing as a frosting substitute.

This is not to say that the food purchased should be intentionally given to any of the senior dog residents at Golden Years, but accidents happen. If a guest accidentally drops a piece of cookie or spills a drink and a furry face comes to help clean up, there is no worry about any harmful effects happening to our canine friends.

Merchandise & Collateral

The takeout packaging, or “doggy bags,” for Golden Years makes use of cream and blue colors, prominently featuring the main dog pattern for the brand and badge logos.

An central aspect of the Golden Years brand is showing love for senior dogs and highlighting our overall mission. Stickers and pins use elements from the patterning, as well as related phrases such as “I Love Senior Dogs” to promote the brand. Bandanas were designed for our furry friends as well. Whether you adopt from our rescue or have a pup of your own already, these bandanas can be worn by any dog, any age.

Website

When developing the website for Golden Years, there had to be an emphasis on adoption experience this café offers. To achieve this, the Golden Years website showcases showcases photos and bios about each of the senior dogs, referred to as “current residents,” that are searching for their forever homes.

If a visitor feels so inclined, this website also provides an opportunity to directly support Golden Years, either through volunteering, donations, or making a purchase from our online merchandise shop. This website design brings a modern element to Golden Years’ brand, and provides an interface that any person of any age would find easy to navigate.