Calendar 2021

October? Already? That means it's high time to start thinking about this year's calendar (or next year's, I suppose, strictly speaking). As I'm sure you're aware, for the past decade I have produced a small number of copies of a simple, spiral-bound A4 calendar featuring my own artwork, for distribution as a Christmas / New Year gift for close friends and family, usually with a few spares to sell to any blog readers who declare an interest. The standard of art reproduction I choose is quite high (I use and recommend Vistaprint) so each calendar constitutes a nice little portfolio of some of the better work I have produced in the preceding year for its recipients to contemplate or ignore as they go about planning their daily lives. If nothing else, it's a nice way to be present in the domestic environment of some people I never get to see often enough.

For 2021 I've pretty much decided to choose twelve of those fantasy versions of page-spreads from my most recent book Let's Get Lost. They have been fun to do, and an opportunity to indulge my leanings towards graphic design. I'm aware that my taste is over-decorative for many, particularly those hair-shirted purists who think anything beyond a plain white setting for a photograph is a decadent distraction, probably concealing poverty of content and lack of moral rigour. Well, plenty of other calendars are available, and I'd hate to pollute the minimalist perfection of your living space, so move along, please, there's nothing for you here. Perhaps you should try Michael Kenna? Or of course, there's always the full, plain-vanilla book version of Let's Get Lost. Which, I have to say, now looks hideously white to me, to borrow a phrase.

Anyway, I have a small design issue on which I'd appreciate your input. If you look closely at the two dummy calendar pages above, you'll see that they are identical, apart from the fact that the second has taken the trompe l'oeil aspect a step further by providing a cover for the page-spread. I could have gone even further e.g. by curving the pages into the "gutter", but I like the slightly mediaeval combination of sophistication and naïveté, reminiscent of certain books of hours. So which do you prefer? With or without? It may of course turn out that some spreads benefit from the extra framing, whereas it detracts from others: a mix may be needed.

By the way, if you think you might want to buy a calendar, it would help to give me some indication of this in advance, even if only tentatively, as ordering a larger number brings the price down: it usually works out somewhere between £10 - £15 (hey, Michael Kenna's calendar costs £20, and that's pretty much a set of blank white pages, with a useless calendar – it's really just a showcase for the photographs. With mine you get loads of colours and a whole page of dates to keep track of your lively social life). It's probably best to drop me an email (see my profile at top right for my address).