One of the reasons I like my work is that compared to other professions, boredom through repetition is rare. I get bored easily and when I get bored, I get clumsy and messy. But this time before the Hindu new year is a time of boredom. Many clients come to me to get their new year calendars printed. Everything from poster size to small pocket ones. The calendars themselves are pretty fun to do but the date part gets to you after a while.
Most people who come in want a totally different concept and design. Something that will blow the competition away. Easier said than done. I mean how many different ways can you present a calendar? There are only two. Either horizontal or vertical. Can’t get more varied than that. We have tried some really novel and different ways to present calendars but in the end we end up with the same two basic choices. The rest are not readable enough to be functional.
Changing the character size or the font doesn’t really come under a new design. And there are pretty limited choices as far as layout is concerned since the days of the weeks have to match. There is no point of a calendar where you can’t figure out which day of the week a date falls on. Sometimes we throw in the phases of the moon if a client requests it. Since Hindu and Islamic calendars are lunar calendars, many of the festivals here depend on the lunar cycle and not on the particular English date. That doesn’t really make a different type of calendar since the main system in use is still the English solar calendar. But the festivals are calculated using the lunar one and the holidays are determined by it. Many people keep religious fasts here and for them it is essential that the phases of the moon be recorded on the calendar.
This just creates confusion in addition to the repetition. Because there are many festivals unique to my state which are not found in other Indian states. Those dates are provided by the state government and we have to wait till the list is released before we can implement them in our designs. Its not a minor matter since many of auspicious times people will buy major things like cars and houses or invest large amounts of money are determined by these days.
While we are not exclusive calendar makers, there are printing houses which just make calendars. Our work is nothing compared to them. There are at least six different types of calendars in regular use in India. One of them is the Christian calendar that we are all familiar with. Then are there two major Hindu calendars with different years and both are lunar. Then there is the Islamic calendar which is also lunar but has its own significant dates and festivals.
Since all the calendars are based on the backdrop of the English one, the results can be daunting. The professional calendars have more than six listings on each of the dates. Horizontal, vertical, left side, right side and yes, even slanted. They list the festivals of all the major religions here and the holidays (which are different from festivals and include events like Independence day and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday). The holidays themselves are separated as national and local holidays with the local ones being voluntary in nature.
Creating those calendars can be a nightmare. Thank goodness we just have to pick a size, paste a photo and dump the calendar on it.
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