Final Project: The Typographical Calendar Project

The 13-Month Typographical Calendar Project

THE PITCH
An inventive typographic promotional calendar (January 2012-January 2013.) It should not only pay homage to typography, but become an informative tool in which you promote, educate and illustrate and celebrate the essence of typography.It should investigate TIME and SPACE and CREATIVITY.

This calendar MUST be sequential and useful as a product.

This calendar might be based on historical time periods, or comparative type styles associated with different eras when the type was first developed or used.

Maybe the calendar is a tribute to different languages using regional typefaces/type styles or even an international typographical calendar. The calendar can be comedic, serious, dramatic, whimsical or however you wish to portray the information and it's presentation. Will your calendar also include punctuation marks, numerals, dingbats?

The 13-MONTH CALENDAR should remain true to the typeface.Remember,
it is a Typographical calendar which should promote the typeface or font as well function to carry someone throughout an entire year + one more month with interesting visual and cerebral results (perhaps the months are designed around when the designer created the typeface or their birthday or when it began appearing in periodicals. You might wish to mix the conservative with the ridiculous.

THE CONCEPT AND THE SIZE AND SCALE
The concept of scale belongs entirely to you. The calendar year can range from a set of postcard size pocket calendars that is packaged accordingly to the more extreme wall size calendars. It needs to be printed although it can also have a digital or on-line version as a form of inclusion. It could be a multi-fold calendar, or a calendar that is packaged in the form of a bound book or loose leaf inside a plexi box. Maybe the calendar can only be seen under black light or wearing a pair of 3D glasses, or it can be a pop out calendar, or it is a tactile offbeat calendar about how typeface is continually murdered and misused by designers. Perhaps the calendar is an industrial calendar, or a personal interactive calendar that serves up some type of instruction (" How to Calendar" or about "Fortune Telling," or astrological).
A calendar one about recipes and cooking or planting (Farmers Almanac)

Can you write on this calendar? Is it perforated? Whats on the back of each page of your calendar?
Is the calendar functional for day to day usage?
Does the calendar come with some type of box of container which serves as its home or holder?
Does the calendar have audio?
Is each month totally different in its format and presentation from the others.
Is the calendar embossed or a rubbing or a transfer or a silkscreen or painted/hand rendered?

THINK OUTSIDE THE usual Calendar you are used to seeing.

Remember that PAPER STOCK and PRODUCTION IS IMPORTANT.
Think about using different kinds of paper stocks or various forms of production (die cuts, 3D pop outs, enameled areas, textured areas, scratch n' sniff...)

Think about how it operates, how it is perceived and how useful it might be to others in understand and celebrating TYPE.

Beware of allowing your vision to become too abstract as the main goal of the project is to be useful as a working calendar that is paying homage to Typography, the designer and it's place in our society.


Be Smart and think about what you wish to create as a conceptual and physical entity.
It must be bound in some capacity. How? That is up to you.

It can be a calendar book or periodical or a conventional flip calendar. The viewer must LEARN (take away) something from this calendar. It should be informational or decorative or traditional or abstract.

SPECS:
It's a calendar so keep your strategy and concept focused.

1- It must be a printed Thirteen Month Calendar using only Typography as image and information. However, you can also have a digital version accompany the printed version if you so choose. Perhaps it is an app.

2- The Calendar should be legible and it must designed so others can read the information regarding month, day and year.

3- The Calendar must be bound in some capacity. Think about this one as there are many ways to solve what is "bound."

THEME:
Think about your theme. This is important.

Perhaps it's a calendar that explores:
Typefaces that are ugly. The Beautiful Typeface Calendar.
The 13 Most Hated Typefaces Calendar.
The Yin and Yang Typeface Calendar.
The Weak vs. Strong Typeface Calendar.
The "bully typeface" calendar.
The Diversity typeface Calendar.
The Family Typeface Calendar.
The Typeface that looks like something else Calendar.
Typefaces that are weak or strong or exaggerated or hard to read.
Typefaces that exhibit certain characteristics such as power, money, dance,fame.
The Holiday typeface calendar.
The French typographpy Calendar (where the words are in English and French..easy way to learn a foreign language calendar.
The Utilitarian Typography Calendar. (Something for everyone)
A Project Runway, only with type, calendar.
The Cool vs Nerdy Typography Calendar.
The Anemic Typography Calendar.
The Exercies Typography Calendar.
The Hip Hop Typography Calendar.
The Ballet or Dance Typography Calendar.
The Pop Artist Typography Calendar.
The 13 Ways to Leave your lover typography calendar.
The Color Wheel Typographpy Calendar.
The Gay Rights Typography Calendar.
The Obama Typography Calendar.
The Political Calendar.
The Music Typography Calendar.
The World AIDS Day Typography Calendar.
The Freakshow Typography Calendar.
The Gardening Typography Calendar.
The Cancer Calendar. (You could create original typefaces and copy that you might sell to raise money for Breast Cancer/Colon Cancer/Skin Cancer, etc.)
A Beautiful 13-Month Calendar which should inspire you. It comes from alumni Candy Zanabria. Well crafted, beautiful sense of color and attention to typography and the style of dances she interprets throughout each month. Thanks Candy!

















Courtesy www.krislime.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html
The House of Usher Calendar






Tam Cao:
Courtesy www.tcartdesign.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html This was based on Tam's love for Rollercoasters and he made the calendar like a book of tickets. If you look at March you'll see there is an actual perforated ticket stub that can be pulled off to ride the March Rollercoaster typeface while also maintaining the integrity of the second half of the ticket he designed.

Check out www.carriehawks.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html
This was Carrie's answer to the Typographic Calendar project as she designed an investigative calendar about how typefaces committed suicide or were murdered. You be the judge. Interesting, provacative and functional.




Courtesy:www.andrewmanning.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html
The Crytid Calendar
This is straight from Andrew's blog where he describes his intentions for the calendar Project: "I've been sort of interested in this weird field of zoology named "cryptozoology." Basically it's about all these creatures that are either presumed to be alive, or maybe their a myth or tall-tale, but they've been spotted sometime by like, some 15 year old kids hopped up on drugs. Well the story gets out, the town is whipped up into a frenzy about this monster and the townsfolk get all weirded out and suddenly you have this mass sighting of some strange critter that is never to be seen again. Or that's just my interpretation of it... Anyways, let's get back on track. I think it would be neat to have a crytid calendar. Every month you'd be introduced to a new crytpid (think Bigfoot, the jersey devil, the little mermaid).

Andrew is an incredible illustrator and designer and he truly let his imagination run wild with this project. Each Illustration was derived from typography.

These first two images demonstrates Andrew trying to conceive of his imagery and ideas on paper. The rest of the images its clear that he found his creative mojo and created some beautifully rendered images mixed with a more traditional calendar format.






Working towards his final concept for the calendar.












Designed by Susanna Hertrich, the Chrono-shredder is a poetic time-object that reminds us of transiency of now and today. It combines the functions of a calendar and a clock, but shreds every single day in real time as it passes. The time that can neither be seen or touched, gets a tangible existence in the form of shredded paper. And, as the days pass by they pile up as the reminder of the mess in the past.
www.crunchpost.com/13-creative-calendar-designs/



courtesy www.swiss-miss.com/2007/08/noa-bembibre-ca.html


courtesy Pentagram.com

The 2007 edition of our popular typographic calendar is here! Designed by Kit Hinrichs, the award-winning calendar displays a classic typeface each month, with brief descriptions of the type designers, their birthdays, plus all major holidays for the United States and United Kingdom.

History of Typography Is Celebrated in Pentagram-Designed 2007 Classic Calendar

An extraordinary history of typeface development, reflecting prevailing limitations or technological advances, lies behind apparently ordinary letters or numbers found on familiar objects. Very few of us are aware of the rich cultural history behind what we read. The 2007 Pentagram Classic Typographic Calendar, designed by Kit Hinrichs, partner of the legendary international multi-disciplinary design consultancy Pentagram, captures the essence of typeface development.

Each calendar month is distinguished by a unique typeface selected by Hinrichs, which is accompanied by a short synopsis of its genesis. His selections include popular and obscure typefaces, whose origins span contemporary (created digitally) to 15th century roots (created using hand-drawn characters) by some of the industry’s acclaimed typographers, as well as those lesser-known. All characters and digits appearing in the calendar have been redrawn digitally.

For instance, “Whitney” (July), designed by Tobias Frere-Jones for the Whitney Museum in New York, was created for the institution in a multitude of applications. The result is a typeface, which successfully tackles the often-conflicting demands across multiple forms of media, from catalogs, directory listings to signage.

“Requiem” (April), designed by Jonathan Hoefler, was eventually developed for Travel and Leisure magazine. Its origins are based on inscriptional capitals appearing in Ludovico Vicentinodegli Arrighi’s 1523 writing manual, “Il Modo de Temperare le Penne.” He added ornaments, italic ligatures and other elements.

“Janson” (February), designed by Nicholas Kis (1650 to 1702) was the forerunner to many 20th century fonts. This classic typeface was named after the Dutch letter founder Anton Janson. Kis’s career as a type designer began when he was a theology student from Transylvania. He was sent to Holland to supervise the printing of a bible. He became fascinated with type design and continued his life as a type designer.

“I wanted to bring a new awareness of typographic design through this calendar,” says Kit Hinrichs. “Typefaces are pervasive in our daily lives in everything we read and see around us and yet most people are oblivious of them or the circumstances in which they were created. We can gain a new perspective on our world by studying the origin of typefaces. I hope the calendar will encourage a new sensitivity to the importance of typeface usage.”

Past calendar months have a new lease of life as gift-wrapping paper. By selecting the appropriate month, circling the day with a marker pen and writing a personal greeting, each calendar month is transformed into a unique gift-wrap, offering a creative way of conveying your message and saving a few trees along the way. The calendar ultimately provides up to 12 different types of wrapping paper.

This collectible calendar is designed in both wall and desk formats and includes U.S. and U.K. national and public holidays. The design challenge was to create a classic, clear and simple calendar, for home and office use. The calendar is designed in two sizes; a super size 33-by-22 inch version, which is packaged in a tube and suitable for wall hanging and a smaller 18-by-12 inch version for wall and desk-use, which is packaged in shrink wrap.

The graphic look, application and typographically sensitive style of Pentagram’s calendar echoes the firm’s core design values: simple, clean and timeless design and a rigorous, strategic, ideas-based approach to the design process, always celebrating the craft of the individual designer.

Kit Hinrichs leads Pentagram San Francisco’s graphic design team with expertise in branding, corporate communications, promotion, packaging, editorial and exhibition design. He is a recipient of the AIGA medal—the design industry’s highest award. His work has been honored and published widely, and several of his pieces are part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and San Francisco, and the Library of Congress. He is co-author of 4 books, Vegetables, Stars & Stripes, Typewise and Long May She Wave. Currently, he is a trustee of Art Center College of Design and serves on the Design and Architecture Accessions committee at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His clients include United Airlines, Design Within Reach, Sappi Corporation, Muzak, University of Southern California and Symantec.

www.design-milk.com/2010-modern-calendars/


Embossed and letter pressed. dig it.

Mouscacho Calendars by Jasho Salazar



You can find him on Flickr


www.empapers.com/calendars/printable-2011-calendar-creative-inspiration

Traditional yet creative in grid layout and color palette.