Advertisers details...

The next problem was in getting the advertisers in place and sourcing their logos and artwork. Of the 36 spaces available in the calendar, approximately 15 were allocated to advertisers from previous years who had agreed to appear in the 2009 calendar. 

Due to the current difficult economic climate, some of the previous years advertisers had gone out of business whilst others could not afford to place an advert.

The Pride members had decided that the calendar would be given away free and that advertisers would pay £49.00 for a single advert and £90 for a double. Both Sue and I felt that a small cover price - £1.00 or maybe £1.50 - would be acceptable to people and would help to offset the printing costs and provide a modest profit to be used in future Pride projects.

This idea was rejected by the other Pride members who chose that the calendars would be freely given away with people allowed to make a "donation" if they felt like it. Any funds earned through donations would go to a local charity.

I contacted various pride members to ask if any artwork from previous years was available but none of the members had any. They gave me the names of the printers used in 2007 and 2008 for me to chase. I was intrigued as to why they had not used the same printer on each ocassion; was it due to cost each time? Did different pride members handle the calendar each time and not pass on the suppliers details? Was the printing also handled by the previous designer?

Hassle

It proved to be a major hassle in getting artwork for the advertisers from the original printers. The firm that produced the 2008 calendar promised me on 6 ocassions - 3 via email and 3 via phone - that they would send it. But they never did.

The 2007 printers eventually got a disk ready which I collected from them. As this was over 2 years old, many of the original advertisers were no longer involved for 2009 and those that were still on board had newer designs in place. Plus, the 2007 artwork was created in Macromedia Freehand and caused me some time consuming problems as I extracted the few parts that I could use.

Whilst awaiting the disk - which I never really expected to se or to be able to use - I had decided to redraw all the advertisers logos and adverts in Adobe Illustrator and to incorporate the few elements that I might be able to use from the original artwork (if it arrived).

Another problem was obtaining enough advertisers to fill the available spaces. Pride member Gary Blakeley was approaching various business about placing ads, but I then discovered he was to be away for a week on a holiday! This was a huge problem as without the advertisers in place, I could not design their adverts and, therefore, would be unable to get the artwork to the printers in time.