DESIGN NAME: Calendar of Coincidence (Zufallskalender)
PRIMARY FUNCTION: Calendar
INSPIRATION: One day, I sat in front of a café in New York, far away from my home in Europe, and somehow I got to talking with an old lady sitting at the table next to me. She told me that she came from Israel. And after some minutes we found out that she knew my mother! Everyone of us looks back on coincidental experiences like this. Therefore we asked ourselves: What happens if we leave someting to chance at our work?
UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION: During all phases of the formation – design, printing, finishing, and binding – the creators and producers of the world’s first Calendar of Coincidence gave up their usual control and relied on: coincidence. The result: Some hundred different and unpredictable calendars!
OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION: Since the calendar pages are arranged by mere chance, you have to flip more than with conventional calenders and look for the right month. By this, the consumer becomes concluding part of the project which led to an unpredictable result. And the consumer has his hands full with the wonderful paper of our client, paper company Antalis.
Watch a making-of video here: http://www.zufallskalender.de (German)
PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION: The project startet in summer of 2010 and was finished in December 2010; the calendar was handed to the target group in mid-December of 2010.
FITS BEST INTO CATEGORY: Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design
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PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY: Spot colors were identified by walking barefoot on an agglomeration of color charts; the colors that coincidentally stuck to the feet of the designers defined the color scheme for the calendar. For the page design, rolling dice, random software, and many more principles of random coincidence were applied, leading to surprising and unexpected results. In the next phase, 12 different papers - provided by the client, the Antalis paper company - were inserted into the printing press, where colors were changed during the printing process. A set of different wire-o bindings and an accidental sort sequence of the calendar pages created unique calendars.
SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES: 335 mm width x 450 mm (900 mm opened) height
TAGS: calendar, coincidence, design, experiment, creativity
RESEARCH ABSTRACT: First, we researched amazing but true stories about mere chance. Then, we looked for ways to let coincidence influence the design part, the printing part, and the bookbinding part. It worked quite well and much better than we expected. In fact, it was hard to expect anything …
CHALLENGE: Since working by coincidence is completely contradictiory to the traditional goal-oriented approach of designers, printers, and bookbinders, the project demanded both a willingness to assume risk propensity and above-average calm.
ADDED DATE: 2011-01-24 01:34:46
TEAM MEMBERS (6) : Thilo von Debschitz, Matthias Frey, Alexander Ginter, Moritz Stübig, Jan Richter and Sebastian Rost
IMAGE CREDITS: Q Kreativgesellschaft, 2010.
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