I was first approached about the calendar for Brighouse Pride via an email on 2nd September 2008. I was due to take a family holiday between 5th and 22nd September and was only able to have a brief meeting with Sue Heginbottom to discuss the calendar before my departure, with the aim of beginning work on the project when I returned. This delay later led to some minor problems with the printer's deadlines.
I called my usual printer and requested quotations on the calendars based on what my client had previously had. Also, during my holiday, I gave some initial thoughts to how the calendar might appear based on the information Sue had told me about their previous ones.
Beginning work
After I returned from holiday, I prepared some simple thumbnail designs for my client to see. These were based on A4 size – with the option of A3 if the budget would allow – for each of the pages. The thumbnails showed a variety of layout solutions with different sizes of the children’s images and accommodation the necessary information for each month – dates, Brighouse Pride logo, advertiser's details etc.
The thumbnails included portrait and landscape options as I tried different ways of fitting all the information onto each page.
Variations
Additionally, as I spoke with various printers, I looked into other ways of presenting the calendar.
Case The option of having the calendar in a neat CD case with each month able to be displayed in a free-standing acrylic case was very tempting. However, as the size of each page would only be 116mm x 135mm, this was too small to satisfactorily arrange all the details in a clearly visible way.
Also, the costs of these – 2000 units at £1300 plus VAT for full colour on one side – were deemed too high. A smaller version in a 3.5” case was still too costly – 2000 units at £1054 plus VAT – and the pages were even smaller at 89mm x 92mm.
Though very attractive in style and packaging, the CD style calendar was out of the running due to cost and ability to adequately display all the information. This style would be fine for a calendar that did not need to show 3 advertisers logos per page.
Hanging A cost effective version was the “hanging calendar” – 2000 A3 units were only £596 plus VAT. However, as these showed a full year on one page, they would not accommodate all the children’s images or the advertisers logos and were not suitable for the task.
14 months We also considered calendars which showed 14 months – December 2008 through to January 2010. These were available in sizes A5, A4 and A3 in both landscape and portrait versions.
However, the costs were considered too high – ranging from £1395 to £5064 – and also we had insufficient time to produce this version.
Wallplaners These were also suggested as the costs were quite attractive and the sizes of A2 (450mm x 594mm) or Super A1 (891mm x 630mm) would allow all the details to be displayed.
The costs ranged from £604 to £979 plus VAT – a gloss laminate to the face would add approximately £150 to the job.
However, as they were so large and required sufficient wall space to hang them, they were deemed unsuitable for the project.
They were also ruled out as all 13 of the children’s images and each of the advertisers (a total of 36) would be presented on one single page and would appear too “busy”.
Desk The largest format in this style, “Chunky”, was only 3 panels at 210mm x 138mm and, once again, too little space was offered.
I obtained prices on these from several sources, but the sizes and space available for all the information was too small.
Quotations
It quickly became apparent that the style previously used by the Pride (13 pages, wire-O bound at the top) would be most suitable. It only remained to get competitive quotes and choose between A4 and A3 size.
My usual printer (Siddall Colour of Cleckheaton) emailed some costs. Even passing on my discount of 10% to the client, these proved much higher than I had anticipated;
CALENDARS. 13 leaf. 4/0.
13 leaves printed FULL colour 1 side only. Leaf 1 on 280gsm, rest on 170gsm art. 500 mic Greyboard back. Wire-O bound at head with calendar hanger. Supplied with board backed envelopes.
Subject to sight of artwork supplied. Price includes 10% discount.
A4 2,000 at a net price of: £4,970.00
A3 2,000 at a net price of: £7,880.00
I returned to my printer and requested they try again and bring the costs down as low as possible. They managed a small reduction;
A4 2,000 at a net price of: £4,473.00
A3 2,000 at a net price of: £7,093.00
These costs were style far too high for my client to afford. I looked elsewhere and contacted other printers – about 6 in total – of whom some did not even bother to return with a quote.
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