very calming + very pretty.

the perfect christmas gift for the design gourmands.. love it!!

This is excellent. The polar opposite of what most calendars look like (especially after you start writing on them). And I really like the black one too. How am I going to decide?

Hate to be a debbie downer…but this is awfully pretentious.

I am with Jenna….this is just silly..

wow.. yeah, i don’t see pretension in this at all! in fact, my first thoughts were more meditative & quiet. I like how subtle it is. It’s not the free municipal calendar you write your kids soccer games on…but if you want that, why are you reading a blog about modern design?

Just lovely in its simplicity – almost symbolic of the simpler life I long for.

wooo go beverly & cmu design! this is just so lovely

Hmm. There’s minimalist and then there’s… not terribly helpful. It’s pretty, but pretty useless as a calendar. I’d pass on it.

Nice if you love minimalism; but not so useful if you lots of dates and events to remember. I think it could look good just hung on a wall as wall art, but isn’t ideal if you want a functional calendar.

This is a modern, minimalist calendar. Not my style, but lovely to the eye. Art should never be judged, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe not a functional calendar, but a converasation piece already.

What Alix & Fresh Design blog said.

Philosophical issues about functionality and design aside, I absolutely love the form, color, and texture of this. I don’t even care whether or not this is “really” a calendar. For me, it’s enough that the design references a calendar format. Beyond that, it’s just a beautiful letterpress print.

Congratulations on a lovely project!

agreed with the naysayers, this is kind of obnoxious…for me a calender needs to be highly functional & I shouldnt have to decipher it.

It’s very lovely as a piece of art. But, I’d never use it as a calendar.

Pretty but not functional.

LOVELY! I’d use it as art though. If not, I’d spend my life counting to figure out the dates I was looking for.

I absolutely love this piece! It’s refreshing to see a calendar that is not just another set of decorative cards with numbers plopped on it. It reminds me of Nooka watches in the way it explores how we visually organize time.

I don’t use my wall calendars to write in events – I use my planner for that, and just use wall cals to check the date at a glance. This would work for that, though it would be a little more work to count up the days and for that reason I probably wouldn’t buy it (also – does it start on a sunday or a monday? My current wall callie starts on a sunday, but my planner starts on a monday). But I like the concept, and the way it leads us to think about time and plans and seasons as maybe not so set in stone as we sometimes assume.

by the way, this is a nice discussion – not just trite positive or negative comments, but actual discussion about a piece. I like when that happens.

ditto….i feel the same way….what she said………………..

just playin. i love this print! its goreous.

Mmmm….I’m not a fan. I wouldn’t use a calendar solely as art, and this is totally impractical for actual use. I think that’s where the “pretentious” comment came from in an earlier post – why take something as utilitarian as a calendar and make it (arguably) useless?

I’m glad that has sparked a fruitful discussion, but I’m firmly in the “love” camp. This is absolutely yummy!

I love that this calendar IS the blank slate we all crave every new year. It holds so much promise in its emptyness and abstraction. I would use this calendar by adding my own marks to it to help navigate and to notate special events from the year. This way the calendar becomes functional for ME and becomes a collaborative piece of art and a mnemonic of a year lived. I think this calendar could be supremely useful and practical in a very personal way.

agree, not at all functional. but i doubt that was ever the artist’s intent. i love that it makes me feel completely differently about days, months and years. i love seeing a new pattern in something that has been right with me my whole life. to me, this is all about re-thinking the visual organization and representation of time. kind of an exploration. i like it.

umm, interesting but 30 bucks fora print that at best you keep on your wall for a year?

Then you have to buy another real calendar and real planner that you can actually use? I would also pass on this. I have been looking for a calendar that is functional AND beautiful and it has been hard to find. Some of us are moms who need to write down info about the soccer game and have a nice looking desk area.

I like what VARIEGATED said about this piece representing the blank slate of the new year. You know what would be awesome? If the days/dates on the calendar only appeared as they actually happened — and all the future days in the year remained hidden behind the icons and designs, so you always had that sense of time unfolding before you…. like something out of Harry Potter!

Thank you, Grace, for being such a defender and supporter. As a letterpress printer myself, I can say that you are right on the mark with your comment. Letterpress goods (and many other fine crafted items) take a lot more time, effort, and expense to make than many people realize. No one is getting rich off of a $30 letterpress print.

This calendar is gorgeous, by the way. Great work, Beverly.

Craft takes time and to be paid more than $3/hr, you have to charge a lot. I think everyone understands that. For me, though, when I buy something handcrafted and invest, (as opposed to thrifting it for practically nothing), I want it to be something either 1) very useful or 2) something I absolutely could not do myself. This is not useful, and I could do it myself. But it is pretty in its own way. Looks kind of like tetris cubes.

Wow, it is such an honor to have my work shown here (thank you, Grace!), but I am even more amazed and thankful for everyone’s comments – regardless of whether you like or dislike the calendar. As a designer just beginning to spread my wings in the “real world”, it helps to have not only words of encouragement, but also constructive criticism to learn from. And like fabframes said, I’m pleased to see that this impractical (it totally is! haha) calendar has stirred up a lively discussion!

beverly, what a lovely comment!

am also firmly in the love camp. and here here for the handmade defenders! way to go beverly! beautiful work.

I love how conceptual Beverly’s work is! I think this piece is very thought-provoking. Nicely done :)

Sorry just to clarify, I would gladly pay $30 for something I could use or something that could remain a print around my house. Sorry, living on a budget, what can I say. Just because someone spends a lot of time on something doesn’t make it worth the price to me if I have to buy another product to perform the function of the first. I am guessing that Beverly’s target consumer is not a student working for a non profit through. :)

Just wanted to chime in and say that I absolutely love this calendar…whether it’s “functional” or not. Way to go, Beverly…keep up the good work. You’ve got an order from me!

Hmm, it seems to me like watercolor paper and handcarved stamps or (more cheating-like), microsoft word would do the trick.

Your time is worth exactly what people will pay you.

Let’s start by saying, as many others have, that this is a beautiful piece of work, both in concept and execution.

And thank you, Grace, for your comments supporting independent artists, and for trying to get people to understand that work does take time. We did not even consider the time it took Beverly to develop the concept, test it and figure out all of the other details.

Comments posted here that indicate that this piece is pretentious, useless or “I can do this myself” are short sighted and, as Grace pointed out, disrespectful.

I, myself, own a small design business and in order to truly understand our profit/loss for any product, we have to understand the fine details, down to the average amount of electricity it takes to make each piece. Most consumers, especially those who do not make anything to sell, do not understand any of this.

I truly appreciate your comments, and all of this discussion, and I look forward to seeing many more items on your site that inspire, and educate, everyone who visits.

Wow, what a discussion! I love the idea of this calendar for exactly the reasons Red Prairie Press stated, it’s meditative and quite. I love that letterpress and simplicity go hand-in-hand here, and the size is great!

I’m grateful to see that so many people try to understand and support artists whose work may be a bit different from the mainstream. This calendar may not be for everyone and we each value things differently. Just because you don’t value it personally doesn’t mean this it’s not worth $30 to someone else.

I think that sometimes we forget that what WE don’t value in something doesn’t mean IT has no value. We make choices in how we spend our money and, like many other things, our choices will differ. And that’s okay. Some can appreciate this calendar as an abstract piece, a social commentary about humans and our views about time. And then some can’t because they don’t want a calendar that’s an art piece. That’s fine too. And I’ll even bet that some folks (maybe just a few) are scared of what’s different, what’s incomprehensible to them. And that’s fine too. There is nothing wrong with any of this. However, it is wrong to assume that what you value (or, in this case, don’t value, is the same for everyone else). If you want a functional calendar, that’s fine. But don’t belittle this one because the artist decided to do something different. Quite frankly, this wasn’t meant to be functional and you can’t hate something (it not being functional) if it never was. And, finally, to those who say they can do it themselves or do it in an easier way, you have to ask yourself: did you come up with the idea? As a self-professed DIY-er who enjoys replicating things I can’t always afford, I can make some things myself because I put my mind to it and I work hard on it. But really, I can only replicate the things I have some knowledge of and, if the artist never came up with the idea in the first place, I probably would not have thought of it myself. So, in the end, mine is only a copy. While that is satisfying on a personal level, it doesn’t contribute to anything else but for myself.

I think letterpress is beautiful and something that I, and I suspect many others, will probably never have access to or learn to use ourselves. I feel thankful that others are keeping the tradition alive, and by being a customer, I’m supporting the process.
I’m on a budget (aren’t we all ?) but I can see this as a better investment than
say, a couple of lipsticks.

I love the clean visual appeal, and the
promise of all those new fresh days to
enjoy. A framed print would look perfect in the nursery of a 2010 baby.

Wow, just hand-setting that type would take ages!

I love both the concept and the execution — wonderful work Beverly, and so gracious of you to take the various comments in your stride.

This is art that I’d be reluctant to write on, truly! (Although marking in the events would add a neat ‘artifact’ quality to this art 10 or 20 years down the road!)