Calendar Season

Working in the stationery and calendar industry has made it completely impossible for me to remember what year it is. An example: when I began advertising my halloween party for this year, I posted it as "Halloween 2010". Someone had to point out my error. While it is clearly still 2009, in my mind, it is almost 2011, since those are the calendars we are pretty much finished designing around the office. Furthermore, we are about finished planning product for August 2010 launches, and have started things for the following January. It's all a bit much to keep track of. I genuinely have to think about it when I write a date, all year. While most people spend January writing the previous year's date, I am writing one two years in advance.

Anyhow, I see a lot of calendars in my line of work and most don't do a lot for me. I mean, a calendar is great, and in spite of the digital age, I still like my old analog calendar. They are pretty, affordable decor and they are helpful when you need to figure out how many mortgage payments you'll be making this month or plotting out a doctor's appointment 6 months in advance. I know you can do these things on your computer, but really, I just like to have the thing turned off in the evenings when I am not working. Which is rarely, with all the jobs I have going right now.

But I digress. I see a lot of calendars that don't do much for me design wise - they work well and have pretty artwork, but don't strike me as original in any way. But, this calendar does:

It took me a look or two to figure it out. The designer calls it the Cats Let Nothing Darken Their Roar calendar, or, as you can see below in the design by removing the black letters, "CALENDAR". Each month's name is spelled out by removing the black letters, though if you read the phrases with letters in, they are quite amusing. I think it would be fun to have this up in your office and watch the confused faces of people who read it. I also have a thing for type and the cool colour pallette is pretty without being twee.



They sell them in smaller sizes for offices or small spaces, but they also sell it in a large free-from-a-chinese-restaurant size that is really cool.

I found out about it over at artist Samantha Hahn's (a previous 'illustrator of the month') blog Maquette. Check it out, it's a great blog.

Oh, and happy Halloween everyone.

Illustrator of the Month October

Chelsea Groves lives outside of San Franscisco. She graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2003 with a degree in Art History and began working as a Graphic Designer. After a few years she began tinkering with paints and papers and has been making these beautiful bird collages ever since, and is now a full time artist.

I am a big fan of Chelsea's collages. The technique is unique and it creates a vibrant, graphic quality I really admire. The majority of the backgrounds are painted in acrylics, and then the leaves for foliage are cut out individually. The birds are composed of carefully trimmed layers of paper and are accented with paint and ink.

Chelsea also creates Linocuts and paintings. You can see more here.

Quote Search

I have to find all these uplifting quotes for work. Most of the ones I really like I don't use, they aren't 'mass' enough to appeal to our market. But anyhow, here's one I like from today:

"My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose." Bette Davis