Things to remember when designing a calendar

When designing your calendar, the most important thing to bear in mind is that great images only are not enough.

You need to make sure that the photos, illustrations or graphic designs you select work as a whole. Also, the overall layout of the calendar needs to be coherent so make sure that you’re not working with different images formats or edit them accordingly. Not to forget, establish beforehand that your image resolution is sufficient and check out required sizes.

One of the most common mistakes people make is not paying enough attention to their cover. This is, after all, the first visual impression potential customers get of your product. The image(s) you choose needs to be expressive and an eye-catcher, something that makes people curious. Images should also relate to the topic and title of your calendar, which might sound trivial but is often overlooked. Another thing: When it comes to the font size for the title, you can never think big enough since the product images on retail sites  are very small. In order to make it easier for you to design professional calendar covers, we have integrated design templates in our online editor for your use. You don’t need to work with them but they’re helpful! Here’s a step-by-step guide how to use them.
Take a look at our design section with lots more tips on how to get it right!
Plus: Always refer to our checklist. If you’ve never created a calendar before, it’ll give you some essential guidelines.

How to make an impact with your cover

Never underestimate the power of your cover, we say! We can’t stress it often enough but your calendar cover is vital for making your product a success. It is the most important element of your calendar – and a selling point. The image you choose for your cover therefore needs to be convincing, as does your title and subtitle (if you choose one), font and overall design of the cover.

Take your time designing a good cover!

It’s worth pondering about this a bit because the cover is your unique chance to attract attention to your calendar and make people who’re searching on Amazon & Co stop in their track. After all, you’ve got a lot of competition, so make sure that your cover exemplifies why your calendars is worth buying and special.

We’ve got a few cover design tips for you. Here it goes:

Choosing the right cover image

A few things you should consider when choosing your cover image:

  • Use an image with a clear and striking central motive that visualises your calendar’s topic well.
  • Make sure that your image represents your calendar in its entirety (and not just part of it).
  • Work with an image that catches peoples’ eyes, makes them curious and interested in your calendar.
  • Choose an image that provides you with enough space to place your title in a large font that can easily be read.
  • Your cover image should be of high quality, i.e. a really good image that shows the craft of photography (or any other art form you might be working with).

Important design criteria

  • Your title font needs to be big enough so that it can still be read on the small thumbnail images used on online shops.
  • Make sure that that there is a high contrast between font and background colour, e.g., choose white or a light colour for your title font if the background is fairly dark.
  • Should you work with a collage for your cover image and combine several images, don’t use more than six; otherwise, everything gets to small and fiddly.
  • Work with image detail! Simply plonking a motive in the middle can be boring. Everything you ever learned about photography and composition also applies to calendar covers. (Just a reminder: top 10 photography composition rules)

Don’t forget: You’ll make our jury happy if you pay attention to your cover 🙂 And your calendars will also definitely make more of an impact and attract potential buyers.

If you use a picture editing software, you can also create a jpg for your cover and upload it on the system when creating your calendar. Plus, here’s a cover design video tutorial on our Calvendo YouTube channel.