How Not to Create a Calendar

The images for my 2011 calendar.

I thought I would share the lessons I've learned during the process of creating my calendar.

Decide before starting how you are going to print your calendar.

I decided after I'd finished creating that it would be more cost effective to have the calendars printed by a company specialising in litho printing. My printer is a large format Epson with 8 colour cartridges more suitable for giclee printing soI decided it would be rather expensive to print calendars using it.

I found a company that offered what I wanted at a good price. However I then had a huge problem as they wanted each page as a print ready Pdf file. Of course I hadn't used Publisher which meant I know very little about the embedded fonts, my colours were in the wrong mode and I hadn't considered having a bleed area. I decided that rather than start again I would print them myself and make sure for my next calendar I'd get it right from the start.

If you are going to bind the calendars yourself make sure you select the equipment suitable for the task.

I already have a plastic comb binder but thought calendars would look better using wire so I ordered one.When it arrived it was tiny, plastic, and only had the capacity to punch 8 x 70gms sheets of paper at a time. What. I was using 170gms paper and 100 calendars would be 1400 sheets (front and back plus 12 sheets) You do the maths and decide how long that would take. So back I went, read the specifications in full and bought a heavy weight model. This one weighs so much I can just move it around but it easily punches the whole calendar excluding the back at one go.

Quality check the first sheet when you change months.

I left the printer happily printing 100 sheets to find when I returned that I'd used a different font for March so they all need reprinting.

But I have now assembled my first calendar and despite all the set backs along the way I'm really pleased with the end result.

2011 Cat Calendar by Gayle

I've been designing a calendar for 2011. Actually I realised I had enough cat images to create two calendars, one in a portrait format, one in a landscape. Putting everything together in the right format has not been easy.

I now need to create a front page and then bind the pages, that sounds like fun.

I'm hoping to have the finished product ready for the cat show I'm having a stand at in a couple of weeks, fingers crossed.