The 13 Month Typographical Calendar Project

The 13-Month Typographical Calendar Project

THE PITCH
An inventive typographic promotional calendar (January 2011-January 2012.) It should not only pay homage to typography, but become an informative tool in which you promote, educate and illustrate and celebrate typography.It should investigate TIME and SPACE.

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 belongs entirely to you. The calendar year can range from a set of postcard size pocket calendars to the 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 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 (it it is printed?)
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.

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.

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 a calendar where:
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 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 French Calendar (where the words are in English and French..easy way to learn a foreign language calendar.
The Utilitarian Calendar. (Something for everyone)
A Project Runway, only with type, calendar.
The Cool vs Nerdy Calendar.
The Anemic Calendar.
The Hip Hop Calendar.
The Ballet or Dance Calendar.
The Pop Artist Calendar.
The 13 Ways to Leave your lover calendar.
The Color Wheel Calendar.
The Gay Rights Calendar.
The Obama Calendar.
The Gardening 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!