Project 1 Synopsis

     As with all projects, designing these calendars had its frustrating moments, but I think it was a worthwhile exercise with which to start the semester off. In some ways I found the trickiest part to be coming up with my initial design ideas--both conceptualizing and sketching them out. We are all so used to seeing "typical" calendar layouts, that the real challenge for me was (literally) thinking outside of the calendar boxes and using the same information in a new and creative way.
     Originally I thought it would be difficult to decide which approach to the calendars best fit my typical methods of design--in many ways they each had their own appeal--but I think in the end I tend to be a little more analytical in my process than anything else. I did not feel overly restrained by the limited constraints of the analytical calendar, and this type of approach is one I have used comfortably before. The intuitive calendar initially resembled the analytical one a little too much, which suggests to me that I'm probably more likely to use an analytical method of design than I am to immediately branch out and let the design unfold by itself. Similarly, my synthetic calendar has a very geometric feel to it and more closely relates to my original design than it does to my intuitive one. Knowing my personality and my tendency to be very control-oriented, neat, and often nit-picky, it makes sense that I tend towards the analytical approach. I've found that I struggle when these traits clash with my more artsy instincts, especially in projects for my studio classes!
     A big challenge for me was creating a "graphic quality" in all three calendars. Creating contrast and hierarchy is something I think I struggle with a lot--I never know how far to push it, and as a result I often don't push nearly far enough. Developing a sense of this "graphic quality" and hierarchy is something I really want to concentrate on a lot over my next two years here. It can be frustrating to see my classmates' work and feel as though they already have a good sense of it while I just can't seem to achieve the same kind of look, but I realize I still have plenty of time to work on this.
     I'm content with how all three calendar designs turned out, but I think if I were to do the project over I would take a different approach. I admit that seeing some of my classmates' designs made me wish I had thought to do what they were working on! I don't think mine would function very well as calendars for the general public to use--they're a little too difficult to follow in some respects, and they would not be at all practical for providing other information (holidays, important events, notes, etc). However, I think as design pieces they are interesting and still convey the necessary information. My favorite one is a toss-up between the intuitive and the synthetic calendars. I like the colors and the boldness of the synthetic ones, but I like how the intuitive ones move and flow
    In the end, it was a valuable process to experience and it reminded me of some things I want to really push myself to develop over the course of the semester and of the next two years here as well.

Final Calendars

Sketches for Synthetic Calendar

Here are my attempts to merge the analytical design with my intuitive design:

The one I'm going to develop is the one on the right in the bottom sketch page. I imagine it will still need plenty of tweaking, but that is my favorite of the ideas. Merging the two in a way that wasn't a complete mess is hard to do!

Intuitive Calendar Design

Here was the translation of my original sketch to the screen:

And after consulting with Prof Fender and making some readjustments, here's the intuitive calendar as it looks right now:

Obviously it changed a lot from the sketches and the original concept that I came up with!

Sketches for Intuitive Composition

I ended up working with the smaller of the two, because it was a single month and not as unweildy and messy as attempting the full year would have been.

Project 1 Analytical layouts

Here's what they look like so far:

Project 1: Sketches

A few of the ideas I played around with for my analytical calendar design.

The above idea was going to be a folded block of pages which would unfold and adhere to the wall as the days went on... maybe a little bit too three-dimensional for the constraints.

This was a design involving threads connecting each date to its day of the week... too messy!

This seemed like an interesting concept with shading, but it looked awful right away so I stopped working on it. It led me to a different take on the same layout, however:

My favorite of the four ideas, this one still needs a lot of work but it's the one I'll be developing for the project.