Unplggd reader and graduate design student, Harald Geisler, wrote in to share a unique DIY project he's just completed: a typographic wall calendar made from two thousand and eleven keyboard keys. Yes, he sorted, separated and arranged each by hand!
The 2011 Typographic Wall Calendar is a project to construct a large calendar from 2011 keyboard keys. The keys are arranged manually in a grid. If you read them, they read each day of the year in sequence: January Sat 01 Sun 02 Mon 03 etc. So the calendar offers a new playful visual experience of time. Through Kickstarter we're hoping to raise the money needed to front the printing costs and ship the calendar directly to you!
The initial project began in 2009 as a promotional work for my Typographic Studio in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The project was a collaboration between myself, a German typographer, and an American dramaturge. Because of an accident at the print shop, only about 80 prints were usable. Fortunately the printer offered a refund, which was used to buy poster tubes and pay for shipping expenses. One week before New Yearโs the remaining prints went out to friends and clients. The response was overwhelming. People called up and said that they wanted to buy more or that they had already framed it.
The Typographic Calendar makes finding dates and marking events a creative process. Every month is followed by a large backspace key, that helps scanning the grid for a specific date. The resulting, huge image (70x100cm) looks beautiful on the wall.
We think it might help if the keys of each month were tinted, since the inclusion of the backspace key doesn't seem enough for our old eyes to scan the wall calendar as quickly as implied above. But if you like the idea, you can help support Harald and his project via his Kickstarter page, which aims to take his one-off keyboard calendar creation and offer it as a large format poster print.
Comments (2)
Brilliant and it keeps all that outdated plastic out of the landfills!
Thank you very much for writing about the "Typographic Wall Calendar".
The funding through Kickstarter was successful!
Here is the link to my homepage with some Making of Photos, hi-res Images of the 2011 Version and more background information:
haraldgeisler.com/2010/12/30/2011-typographic-wall-calendar/
For now the remaining prints of the “2011 Typographic Wall Calendar” are available and ready for purchase online →haraldgeisler.com/order-prints/
If you like to get a look at the calendar in full size, the print (70x100cm) is available in these stores:
Berlin:
do you read me?
Magazine und Lektüre der Gegenwart, Auguststrasse 28, Berlin-Mitte
Open: Mon- Sat 10 –19.30h
Frankfurt am Main:
Buchhandlung Walter König
Hasengasse 5-7 (next to Kleinmarkthalle), Frankfurt am Main
Open: Mon-Fri 10-19h, Sat 10-18h
Souvenir Frankfurt
Kaiser Passage 29 – Kaiserstrasse 62-64, Frankfurt am Main
Closed: Monday
Open: Tue – Fri 10-20h, Sat 10:30 – 16:30