It’s no secret that one of the very best business gifts any brand can give to both clients and peers alike is that of the corporate calendar. The reason being that there’s really very little else you can offer that’s guaranteed to be right there in front of the face of the recipient for pretty much every day of the year and perhaps be interacted with on a daily basis. According to the printing experts at e-printing.co.uk, get it right with a corporate calendar and what you’re essentially looking at is a powerful marketing medium placed in a prominent position in another business almost 100% free of charge.
Of course, whether or not the calendar gets used and has any real impact comes down to the decisions you yourself make when putting it together in the first place. After all, it’s not as if any self-respecting office is going to happily hang a calendar that looks quite appallingly amateurish or generally lack-lustre, so it’s a good idea to think long and hard about the investment you plan to make.
So, in order to ensure that your own business calendar hangs with pride on the wall and escapes the dustbin, here’s a quick overview of a few key design tips to make it happen:
1 – The Importance of Imagery
A calendar will in most instances be made up mostly of imagery with much smaller area left for text and so on – a decorative feature as it predominantly is. As such, it’s important to give the calendar’s imagery the thought and consideration it requires as if you get it wrong with the pictures, the rest will not matter at all. The key here is to not only make sure that the images are relevant to your business and attractive, but also free of any cliché or general cheesiness. Feel free to use your own images, but only if they are of sufficient quality to represent your business proudly.
2 – Balance Form with Function
If you produce a supremely pretty calendar with lots of lovely pictures, there’s a good chance it will sit on the recipient’s wall as a decorative touch for quite some time. However, if you managed to come up with a calendar that’s both pretty and functional, chances are they’ll interact with it on a regular basis. This is of course the ideal result as the more they interact with it, you more your name and your brand become familiar parts of everyday life to those using the calendar. As such, be sure to make the calendar as functional as possible with plenty of spaces for notes and entries.
3 – A Sensible Size
Whereas some businesses will design calendars that are the size of postage stamps to save cash, others will go for wholly gigantic variants to try and make as much impact as possible. And then of course there are those who design strange and irregularly shaped calendars again to stand out from the crowd, but the problem in all instances is that none of these are likely to make it onto the walls of those for whom they are intended. Like most things, there’s a set shape and size a calendar is expected to be and while there’s nothing to say you cannot deviate from the norm a little bit, going totally OTT is never going to work out in your favour.
4 – Quality Printing
One quick point that’s nonetheless incredibly important to touch upon is that of the quality of both the materials used and the printing service charged with the task of putting it all together. The reason being that even if you have the most stellar imagery and design accents in the world, it will all come to nothing if the whole calendar looks like the result of some cheap and amateurish DIY home project. It will after all be representing your brand, so make sure it’s a good representation.
5 – Don’t Forget Its Purpose
Last but not least, you need to remember throughout the design process that this is a marketing tool you’re creating and thus must be used to market you and your brand effectively. This doesn’t necessarily mean making every last page an obvious ad for you and what you do, but it certainly does mean making sure that your brand and your message are conveyed consistently throughout. Consider introducing monthly special offers to keep the recipient interested throughout the year, while remembering to add your contact details to at least a few of the pages so they know how to get hold of you when the time comes.
