Calendar Format

[rpcrowe]

We are going to produce a calendar for 2017 and I am going to start on it now. The board of directors would like a calendar with both entry photo and after TLC portrait photographs.

I don't think that the entry photo should be as large as the portrait This is especially true since I didn't take much pains with shooting the entry images which were just supposed to be a record for our purposes, not for publication. (best laid plans of mice and men). I think that this might be the way to go... What do you think of this format?

(1)


However, adding the name of the dog might personalize the image...

(2)


They also want a short story of the dog but, I think that the story should be on the page below the image, the page on which the individual calendar days are printed.

What do you think about this format. The calendar will be 12 inches square or possibly 14 inches square depending on where we get the calendars produced and the charges for the various sizes...

[Geoff F]

We are going to do something similar for our 2017 history society calendars; but that will be with around 100 years between images.

It needs quite a bit of thought about calendar size. My own calendars are on A4 size (8 x 12 ins) with one month per page which is split into a photo on the upper half with the calendar underneath. Simple and fairly cheap to produce so I print my own.

With this years history society calendar, the size is A3 with each photo and the calendar month having a separate A4 landscape format page. So it folds up to A4 for transport/postage etc but opens out to A3 when hung on a wall (12 x 16 ins). Each monthly photo being above the actual calendar space when hanging.

The calendar space needs some careful thoughts. Does it have just dates or will there be a space for some writing to be made on any required dates. If there is a writing space should that be a square space with the day/date relatively small or a longer narrow writing space with the date at one end?

Should each week begin with Sunday or Monday? Some people have strong views about this option.

How about public holidays or other events being included?

Should the calendar portion be limited to 5 lines? So some end of the month dates appear at the start of the first line? That does save a bit of space but would some people find it confusing? Both my own calendars and the history society versions have this 5 line limit.

And the more you look around at how other people have produced their calendars the more you become aware of how many options there really are.

[rpcrowe]

Thanks Jeff,

There are many options. We plan to use a format in which the image is full page size above and the days/dates on a full page size below. 12 inches square is the minimum size and I am pushing for a larger 14 inch square calendar. Unfolded that makes a display 12 inches by 24 inches or 14 inches by 28 inches. We may have both sizes available.

Normally our U.S. calendars seem to always start the week with Sunday and I would expect that is the format we will use. I have seen calendars that start the week on Monday and this can get confusing for some of us Yanks. After all, 40% of the Americans (I am not one) believe that Noah's Ark really happened and that the world was made in literally seven days

Normally there are blank day spots before and after the month starts (the number depending on what day of the week the month starts on). We usually place other small thumbnail pictures of our rescue dogs in these spots.

I think that we will include the history of the dog (some are very touching) in this section.

We plan to have the calendar done by a professional printing company. The last calendar we did was also marketed by the printing company, so we didn't have to worry about accepting payment and mailing out the calendars. We will also order some calendars for sale at our rescue events but, need to be careful about numbers. We don't want to get stuck with a number of unsold calendars. Of course we will receive less profit by having the company sell the calendars for us but, we won't have to worry once we get the format laid out. In actuality, the company's web site sold a lot of calendars to people who had never heard of us...

[Mike Buckley]

Consider placing the "before" photo on a completely different page or at least on a different part of the same page. Now that you know that "before" and "after" photos are likely in your future, get the dogs to frown for the "before" image and to smile for the "after" image.

[Shadowman]

How about the entry photos in tile form either first or last page of the calendar? You could also have the story linked to the tile or the month of entry and displayed on another page.

[IzzieK]

How about utilizing the empty spots as added information about the dog instead of inserting a thumbnail of another dog, just so all will relate to the same dog and not be confused about others? Just a thought.