How big should the font be on an A4 wall calendar?
A calendar can have the most beautiful artwork in the world, but if you can’t read it from across the room, is it doing its job?
That was the discussion Paul and I had this morning while looking at the January page of my Far North Queensland calendar.
After all the deleted layers, troublesome trees and middle-of-the-night decisions I’ve shared this week, I’m finally happy with how the January illustration has turned out. The next job was adding the calendar itself, including the month and dates.
That raised another question I hadn’t completely settled: how large does the text need to be?
Designing at full size changes what you see
I create my artwork on an iPad Air, which is roughly the size of the finished A4 calendar page. I displayed the design at full size so Paul could see how it would look when printed.
His immediate reaction was that the month was too small.
He wanted to be able to look across the room and see the artwork as well as the date. His suggestion was to make the word January considerably larger - possibly around 100 point.
My response was that the calendar is partly about the artwork. I don’t want the month heading to overpower the illustration that people are buying it for.
Neither of us is necessarily wrong. We’re looking at the calendar from two different perspectives.
A calendar also needs to be useful
Although the artwork is an important part of this calendar, it still needs to work as a calendar.
I chose A4 rather than A3 because I prefer the smaller size. Within that space, I’ve tried to make the boxes large enough for people to add appointments and notes.
Making one element bigger means something else has to give.
A much larger month heading may make the calendar easier to read across the room, but it could leave less room for the illustration or the date boxes. Keeping it smaller protects the writing space, but it may not suit someone who wants to glance at the calendar from the other side of the room.
This is the part of designing a product that isn’t always visible in the finished piece. Every decision affects another decision.
How do people actually use their wall calendars?
The right answer depends on what someone expects their calendar to do.
Some people use a wall calendar mainly as artwork and enjoy turning the page to see a new illustration each month. Others use it as a practical household tool filled with appointments, birthdays and reminders.
There are also people who mostly need to see today’s date at a glance and don’t write much in the boxes at all.
I can make design decisions based on what I prefer, but I’m not the only person who may use it. Asking the question now is far more useful than discovering after it has been printed that the balance isn’t right.
Good design is often a compromise
Designing a calendar involves balancing visibility with writing space, while still giving the artwork enough room to be appreciated.
There may not be one perfect font size that suits everyone. My job is to find the point where the calendar feels beautiful without becoming less useful.
Paul and I hadn’t settled the argument before we left for our walk. We were far more successful in agreeing where to get lunch. Fish and Bites under the Aqua building on the Gold Coast won that decision without any debate.
The calendar question is now yours.
If you were buying an illustrated A4 calendar, would you prefer larger text that you can read from across the room, or smaller text with more room for the artwork and writing?
