Getting somewhere...

I set up the first file for the artwork in InDesign, using an A4 page with 3mm bleed all round - as stipulated by the printers. I then created the boxes required to hold the various components required on each page - images, adverts, log, dates etc. These were then arranged to suit the demands of my client and to make best use of the available area.

I then set about choosing a font to reflect the mood and style of the children's pictures. I believed that a Sans Serif or Serif font would be too "formal" for the theme and looked at many handwriting type of fonts. I eventually settled on "Handwriting Dakota Regular", as this had just the right shape and character that I wanted.

Using Illustrator, I redraw the Brighouse Pride logo from a scan I had made of an earlier calendar; this took several hours for me to accurate reproduce it. This was then placed into the correct box in the InDesign document.

The file was then copied and renamed for each month - January through December - with another file made for the cover; this would be the one page that had a different style.

The file was then converted into a PDF and emailed to Sue for her inspection. She replied that it looked great and was exactly what the wanted. I had set the artwork on both a white background and on a yellow background for Sue to choose which she wanted. The yellow background was much better for showcasing the images and complemented the theme of primary school and, therefore, Sue decided to go with this one.

Illustrator was also used for creating the artwork of the advertisers so far confirmed and I set to on these. Some were easier to do than others, with an average of 45 minutes taken on each one. Several adverts from the earlier calendar were obviously put together by the printers as some of them shared similar choices of fonts and the designs were very close. As time was important, I made the decision to redo some of the adverts myself as I did not have sufficient time to contact all of the companies to discuss their needs.

I also rang the printers to discuss the timing difficulties with them. They gave me a boost by saying that if I could get the majority of the pages to them within the week, then they could accept the final pages once we had filled all the advertising space. This was a great help to me as we had by now managed to get enough advertisers on board to fill 9 pages.