The project was to design and develop public service announcements addressing the issues of civic hygiene; short fillers to be used in between programmes. At the same time, they could enable star news to project itself as a channel that is conscientious about the realm of civic sense apart from regular news.

In India, people urinate irritatingly in public. It not only causes displeasure by the sight of it, but also causes public places to stink. We Indians are used to habits such as this but our society certainly gets a few points lesser in the eyes of outsiders, who malign us as lacking civic sense. This is a film which does not preach to people overtly. “To pee or not to pee” is a subtle satire and a strong message comparing any body that urinates in public with a filthy dog.

The project also aimed to make a series of PSAs on habits like spitting in public places, honking unnecessarily, littering, eve teasing, smoking, breaking the queue etc. Star News being a Hindi news channel, aimed to get their image revamped as a socially sensitive news channel and break the monotony of its serious news by interesting animation.

Time constraint was a major factor in designing the films, but old Indian print ads were taken as inspiration. I used basic and minimal colours and the imagery was more graphic and devoid of unnecessary detail.