What is calendar? A thing that helps you to know what day of the week the 4-th of July will be? Wrong. As for me, calendar is a wonderfull way to make your customers remember you! Doesn't every businessman ineterested in that?
Imagine, that your customers every day will see the name of ypur company and remember how perfect your product or service
are. It is not a dream, it is just a result of presenting them your new brand calendar! Halleluia!
But still there are some problems. The first one, and the main is that everybody presents calendars! People just get sick and
tired of all those stuff. "Classic-painting"-like calendars, funny cartoon calendars, sweet animals calendars, pocket-size
visit-card calendars - believe me, it doesn't work. Well, in the matter of fact, it works sometimes, but you need to create
something really good to stand out form the rest and to make your customer hang yopur calendar on the wall or put it on his
table.
If you don't have enough money and abilities to organize supermodels photosessions for your calendar, just using imagination while creating a custom calendar
is good idea. Just examine those beautifull custom calendars from gold and diamonds! Oh, I forgot you don't want to spend a lot of
money, sorry...
Okay, talking seriously, there realy are some ways to create interesting custom calendar with low price. Be originall!
Must the calendar be usefull? In the matter of fact, it doesn't. In other words, it's good for a wall calendar to be
usefull, but it is'nt it's main goal. It's main goal for you is to make your client rememeber you, and for the client it's
main reason is to make his room look better.
So, designing the calendar, you should, at fist, decide, how you want your clients to imagine you. If you are a lawyer,
creating a calendar with naked girls, beer and motorcicles is a bad idea. You don't want your clients imagine you something
like that, do you? But all these visions are suitable for something like night club, or other place where client can spend
his time with fun. Create a vision of yours, and just put it on your calendar. And, of course, don't forget about numbers,
the calendar itself!
Once, while representing my one agency at the exposition, I saw wonderfull example of low-price originall decision of graphic design calendar. It was
peresented by a building company, wich was advertising it's new construction project. The calendar just shows how will this
project look like in different months of the year.
Another fine example was a cup-calendar. It's twice more usefull - a calendar and a cup at once! The only defect is that this
cup will be not so usefull next year!
A fan-calendar was even more original. It was the classic example of nearly useless thing, but I keep it on my desktop, and
was very nervious when someone asked me to examine it!
A big print-house in Moskow create a calendar, presenting print-house's printing abilities. It consist of twelve blank white
sheets with just numbers at the bottom, and a square 20*20 cm in the center.In this squeres was printed the whole novel "WAR
AND PIESE" devided on twelve parts - a part for a sheet. They also preset a magnifying glass with every calendar, so client
was even able to read the text!
So the first rule in inventing custom calendars - be original, don't use clich?s.
But there's a second rule - it must look great. One of my friends designed a very original calendar. It looks like a front
page of the newpaper with very original presenting of calendar numbers. But it was black-and-white, at most - gray, like
newspaper page. This was it's only defect, but it was enough - the calendar didn't SHOW itself. I do not know how my friend's
clients respond when he present this calendar to them. But even if they hang it on the wall, I don't think that anyone see it
there!
So, fantasy, fine polygraphy, good idea and an image is strictly requred for a fine calendar - as well as for any other
souvenir. And if you are going that way in advertising your company please rememeber that.