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2017

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BROWSE


Lead Image

Yozhik&Co 2017 Cat Calendar

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Production Method

Digital

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Design

Jessi Adrignola

Natalia Bulsza-Gottschalk, Project Manager
Natalia Bulsza-Gottschalk, Production

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Printing

Barrington Print & Copy

Sometimes the tools we have on hand to create are underused or overlooked entirely. This calendar collaboration stemmed from such a realization, slowly working out kinks and issues until finally a sellable product was developed. 

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Client

Self


Quantity Produced

15


Production Cost

136


Production Time

8 hours

Dimensions (Width × Height × Depth)

4.63 × 5.38 in.


Page Count

13


Paper Stock

Cougar / Digital / Smooth, White / 100 C


Number of Colors

CMYK

Varnishes


Binding


Typography

Roboto, Bold
Roboto, Light
Abril Fatface, Regular

This piece is available for purchase for $20


Yozhik&Co 2017 Cat Calendar
Yozhik&Co 2017 Cat Calendar
Yozhik&Co 2017 Cat Calendar
Yozhik&Co 2017 Cat Calendar
Yozhik&Co 2017 Cat Calendar
Yozhik&Co 2017 Cat Calendar ---

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Project Description

It all began with a light bulb moment. Natalia, the designer and brains behind Yozhik&Co, woke up one day with the want to shake things up and an idea to create a calendar. At the time, she had a cutting machine that was sitting in a corner eating dust for over a year, and thought, what if? That’s how the specialty cut calendars were born. Natalia created a special Yozhik&Co line, The Collaboration Series, to collaborate more with other designers. The amazing and talented Jessi Adrignola designed and illustrated the quirky 2017 Cat Calendar, as part of The Collaboration Series. Jessi Adrignola is a designer based in Chicago. Among her adventures in design she can be found collaborating with artists and writers on comic books, getting her hands dirty creating her grunge style lettering, and experimenting on art projects.

When Jessi first approached the project, she asked herself what she would want to see on her desk every single day. Most people buy products because they have an emotional connection with them, no matter what kind of community or sub-culture they identify with. She thought of the calendars people create online with photos of the people they care about. Then realized, it might not be people at all. She loves her cats like any other family member, and if we have learned anything from the internet, it’€™s that people love their pet videos. The cat theme idea came to fruition. I knew having the die-cut for ears would in itself speak as a long distance “€œposter”€ and also work for a cut-out design every month.

Production Lesson(s)

All of the Yozhik&Co desktop calendars are specialty cut, loose sheet format. Some designs range from a different cut for every month to one or two different cuts throughout the year. Paper layering, color, the positioning of the die-cuts and the small calendar size are a few of the challenges in creating the desktop calendars. All of these factors (and a few more) need to be considered as a whole in order for the calendars to work. The Cat Calendar is comprised of two die-cuts, with the graphics printed full bleed on white paper.  

While designing the calendar Jessi realized the more complicated and intricate she made the cuts for the faces and ears, the less the visual looked like a cat. Having too many layers show through posed the problem of too many colors vibrating against each other, and having too few colors in the design didn’€™t give the emotion and presence she felt each month needed to stand alone. Making the cat faces change in size also started to take away too much real estate for the calendar text, so it would sacrifice the functionality of the design. If it became too abstract, Jessi worried that the customer wouldn’t connect with each month in the same way, and it might dissuade someone from buying.

It was a simplification of her initial ideas, that created the end product where the illustration really became the main focus and the die-cuts and color changes supported them. Jessi needed to consider the end-user who would be seeing this calendar in their space every day. She couldn’€™t “degrade” the design after it was flipped each month just because it looked great for the beginning of the year, with the end of the year not being engaging.”

Post Author

Author Picture

Bryony Gomez-Palacio

Editor of FPO and co-founder of UnderConsideration LLC.

More: Online / On Twitter

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Date Published

January 19, 2017

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Filed Under

Calendar
Digital

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About

FPO (For Print Only), is a division of UnderConsideration, celebrating the reality that print is not dead by showcasing the most compelling printed projects.

FPO uses Fonts.com to render Siseriff and Avenir Next.

FPO is run with Six Apart’s MovableType

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All comments, ideas and thoughts on FPO are property of their authors; reproduction without the author’s or FPO’s permission is strictly prohibited

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About UnderConsideration

UnderConsideration is a graphic design firm generating its own projects, initiatives, and content while taking on limited client work. Run by Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit in Bloomington, IN. More…


blogs we publish

Brand New / Displaying opinions and focusing solely on corporate and brand identity work.

Art of the Menu / Cataloguing the underrated creativity of menus from around the world.

Quipsologies / Chronicling the most curious, creative, and notable projects, stories, and events of the graphic design industry on a daily basis.

products we sell

Flaunt: Designing effective, compelling and memorable portfolios of creative work.

Brand New Conference videos / Individual, downloadable videos of every presentation since 2010.

Prints / A variety of posters, the majority from our AIforGA series.

Other / Various one-off products.

events we organize

Brand New Conference / A two-day event on corporate and brand identity with some of today's most active and influential practitioners from around the world.

Brand Nieuwe Conference / Ditto but in Amsterdam.

Austin Initiative for Graphic Awesomeness / A speaker series in Austin, TX, featuring some of the graphic design industry's most awesome people.

also

Favorite Things we've Made / In our capacity as graphic designers.

Projects we've Concluded / Long- and short-lived efforts.

UCllc News / Updates on what's going at the corporate level of UnderConsideration.


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