Hello 2017, I’m publishing a calendar for you
I travel quite frequently. While that happens, camera acts as a dedicated companion. My photography is generally limited to myself. Sometimes, I share them on FB, some selected ones on Instagram.
At the year end this time, I thought of giving my photos a physical face. I asked a few friends around who appreciated the thought and that’s how the calendar was born. I put in a couple of weeks in the whole process starting from understanding print mechanics to forming a concept and getting it designed. Now it feels ready and it is up for pre-orders.
A lot of thought has gone into designing it. There are two versions of the calendar, one for the desk and the other one for the wall. I’ll talk about some of the design features in this post.
Minimal + Blank Slate
I have a special affinity towards simple interfaces and minimal design. I like to deal with a limited set of things, but I use them at their full potential. The same philosophy was followed in the calendar design process as well. It provides ample breathing space, doesn’t overly emphasize all the holidays. Weekends are important, so Sundays and Saturdays are bolder than other days.
I also like to interact with my calendar. Different people have different leave structures, so it is almost impossible to show all the relevant holidays and still be minimal. I opted for a specially crafted art paper for printing. I rather like to mark my special days with a pen on my calendar. A calendar accompanies you at least 365 days, it requires that much respect.
Traveler’s calendar
It was quite clear from the beginning that I wanted a calendar which could feature some of my best work. For the love of travel, it was obviously the first choice to make it a travel calendar. I went back through the archive of my albums, selected photos from every month of travel and picked some of the photos which looked the best. After a couple of more rounds of screenings, I had 12 photographs from different places for every month. I didn’t want the desk calendar to be a smaller copy of the wall calendar, so both had different selections as well.
When is the full moon
I usually try to sync my travel plans with the phase of the moon. I decided to replace all full moon nights with a photo of full moon itself. In some private surveys I conducted, people really loved this idea. So, here you go!
Perforation
I hate the fact that most calendars become useless once the years ends. The ones you see here would go a long way. There is a perforated line between the photo and the calendar. Once every even numbered month is over, you can tear off the calendar through the perforated line and use the other half as a poster.
So, 12 additional posters for the price of just one calendar.
What do you think about this calendar? Let me know via comments. If you live in India, you can directly pre-order the calendar. If you live outside, consider sending an email to hello@jai.im.