form + function

Apparently I can't bear the thought of any idle time whatsoever because I've been working on a perpetual calendar design this week. Here is a sneak peek {click to make it larger}. If I can, you know, somehow create more free hours in the day, I'll be printing these in the next two weeks, in time to bring with me to the Sunday Best Holiday Sale. These will be printed 2-up on 8.5 x 11 Lettra so each page will be a finished size of 4.25 x 11. I narrowed this project down to just 6 colors + black text – peacock, leaf, ochre, cranberry, thistle, slate and I paired month layouts to be able to print everything 2-up. So what you see above are months May and June, but these won't be printed together. May will be printed with August {thistle}; June will be printed with March {leaf}. I'm planning to print about 100 of these this round. I'm not entirely sure about the price yet, but I'm thinking around $25-30.

There was an interesting reaction to this calendar over at design sponge last week ... Form and function – I believe there can be a balance between the two; it's not an either/or situation, really, and why should it be? And isn't function is a subjective term? Couldn't you argue that beauty by itself is and should be a function in our lives. I hope so, even if we all have different notions of beauty ...

But, all the discussion aside, the beauty of the perpetual calendar IS its usefulness. It can be used a birthday reminder or perhaps as a condensed journal ... jotting down a few words that capture the day, which is how I plan to use on of these. Maybe you need a calendar meant for tracking your schedule {and I really, really do, but I use google calendar for that}; maybe you're looking for a print that is only very loosely a calendar and more a print, like Beverly's {or like this lovely one from Hello Handmade last year, which I have hanging in my house}; maybe you're someone, like me, who has never been very good at keeping a journal but could find time to write down a few words a day ...

{Thank you, Lia, for giving me that final push toward working on these. I hope you'll like it.}