Have you ever gone looking for something, found lots of things you quite like, but nothing that's exactly what you want?
That was me with the inside of my 2027 weekly planner.
I had a good look at the planners when I was in Officeworks, then spent some time browsing Etsy and Pinterest to see what other people had created. There were bits and pieces I liked, but nothing that made me think, yes, that's the one.
So I started experimenting with a few layouts of my own.
A Little Bit of Pretty and a Lot of Practical
I eventually settled on little boxes with rounded corners. I've always liked rounded corners, and I think they work particularly well with the style of my illustrations.
I wanted the weekly pages to feel organised without looking too rigid. After all, if I'm going to use a planner every day, I want to enjoy opening it.
Each month also has an at-a-glance page, with one of my Far North Queensland Adventures illustrations sitting opposite it.
The Thing I Hadn't Quite Allowed For
One thing I discovered when uploading the planner to Amazon KDP was that I'd been a little too generous with the space on my monthly overview pages.
KDP flagged part of the design as being too close to the gutter.
If you've never designed a book before, the gutter is the inside margin where the pages meet at the spine. When you open a book, that inside edge changes sides depending on whether you're looking at the left-hand or right-hand page.
I'd allowed for margins, but I needed to give the binding a little more breathing room.
Fortunately, it was easy enough to adjust in Affinity Publisher. It's something I'll definitely be keeping in mind when I create another book.
The Characters Kept Their Souvenir Bags
I originally thought I'd remove the souvenir bags from my calendar illustrations before using them in the planner. Then I realised how much work that would involve.
Some of the characters were drawn around their bags, so removing them would mean redrawing parts of the illustrations. I decided they could keep their souvenirs.
Instead, I've added my Pretty Way meets Mary Poppins phrases around each illustration, curving the words above and below the characters.
A couple of the phrases were longer than the others, so those needed a little extra arranging to make everything fit.
I love how those pages turned out. They give each month a bit of personality before you get into the practical planning pages.
My Favourite Bit Might Be the Cover
The inside was finished, but I still needed something to wrap around it.
I started creating a simple repeating pattern in Procreate, then recreated it in Affinity Designer because that made it easier to put everything together in Publisher.
My platypus sits across the front cover, and on the back I've added a little message that says “Drawn with love in Queensland, Australia.”
It's a small detail, but I think it finishes the whole thing off rather nicely.
The Printed Version Has Arrived
My Amazon parcel arrived on Monday evening, somewhere between 7 and 10pm. Ten o'clock is well past my bedtime, so I decided to leave the unboxing until the following morning when I was a little more awake.
And I love it.
The 6 × 9 inch size is lovely, the colours look great, and I'm particularly pleased with how the cover turned out. I chose to print the planner in colour because that's what I wanted for myself. It does make the planner more expensive, but I think the illustrations deserve to be seen in all their colourful glory.
There is one little thing I noticed as I flicked through the pages. Although I'd set the document up with bleed, some of the coloured backgrounds haven't quite reached the edge of the paper. It's not something that bothers me enormously, but I might go back and see whether I can extend them.
I also added a QR code to the final page, which I discovered I could create directly in Affinity. I hadn't realised it had that feature, and it even let me change the colour.
The planner has a Monday start, with the same twelve illustrations from my Far North Queensland Adventures calendar. If you'd prefer a Sunday start, or you'd be interested in a less expensive black-and-white version, please let me know. I haven't created those versions, but I'm happy to consider them if there's enough interest.
And yes, Scruff made an appearance during the unboxing. Apparently, he had things to say about the planner too.
I'm looking forward to using my own planner next year. There's something rather lovely about seeing illustrations that started on my iPad turn into something I can hold in my hands and use every day.
Fancy a Copy?
My Far North Queensland Adventures Weekly Planner 2027 is available on Amazon, and I've set up a link that should take you to the Amazon store for your country.
You can also find the planner alongside my illustrated 2027 calendars at jodraper.au/calendars.
I looked at planners in Officeworks, Etsy and Pinterest before designing my own. Here's how I created the inside of my illustrated 2027 weekly planner, including one lesson about KDP gutters.