Desktop Calendar 2010

[antzfx]

A 2010 desktop calendar with a corrugated carton box background



Some of the captions are from the 2002 song 'Here I am' by Brian Adams (OST: 'Spirit: The Stallion of Cimarron').

To see and download the calendar, please visit:
http://fullfx.antzfx.com/2009/12/26/design-calendar-2010/

[Ek Kanya]

nice. getting a lot of downloads?

[antzfx]

Hmm...

After doing a lot of shameless self-promotion as well as spamming, now a Google search for 'Design calendar 2010' shows my blog link of the calendar within the first 10 results.
Search term of 'calendar 2010 design' gives the blog result within the first 30 results.
Search term of 'desktop calendar 2010' gives the blog result within the first 30 results.

Now I know a little bit on how to promote a 'crap' design and how to get figured in Google search!

[vikram sharma]

hey can you elaborate on yoru search engine skills? sound sinteresting

[Priyanka]

antzfx! you are so clever! how did you do it? please tell us!

[antzfx]

@Vikram Sharma:

Following was my strategy --
1. My blog has 33,000 page views in a year. I posted the design in my blog. My Calendar Design of 2009 was a hit and so I gave links of 2010 calendar in that article and also placed small ads about this Calender in my blog. http://fullfx.antzfx.com
2. I announced about the existence of this design in Twitter. http://twitter.com/antzfx I have only less than 90 followers, but most of them are from design background. This resulted in some re-tweets and mentions in RSS Feed Aggregators.
3. I posted news about this design in forums including desiCreative.com, SmashingMagazine.com, IIScForum.com...
4. The Students' magazine in IISc -- 'Voices' -- sent the link of my blog to the whole IISc Community (3000+ people) in their New Year Message on 31-Dec-2009.
5. LinkedIn, Orkut, Facebook status updates on the design of 2010 calendar.
6. Took some prints of this calendar as a desktop calendar and sent them to people who interacted with me in 2009 -- this includes clients, friends, mentors... The mention of the blog in the print version made these people to visit the blog and download the soft copy.
7. That's it. I am writing this point just to make the total number 'seven.'

@Priyanka:
Detailed steps on how I made this calendar will be posted in my blog within a couple of days:
http://fullfx.antzfx.com/2009/12/26/des ... ndar-2010/
Please check back later to know the story.

[Hasmukh]

wow! thats quiet an achievement, antzfx!

[Saumya]

hey nice! you should help out trevorlawrence here

[Desh Premi]

actually I wish you had spent more time making the calendar look better!

[kikikikikiki]

hahahaha antz, i will download your calendar soon and so don't know yet how you design, but i like the way u write! like in point 7 above!

[antzfx]

@Hasmukh: Thanks...

@Saumya: My suggestion to trevorlawrence is to make honest blog posts/tweets/discussions in forums and build good rapport with the art community. But the whole process will take some time (6 months or more) and generally people are impatient as they need immediate results.

@Desh Premi: I totally agree with you. Making the first work popular and nice is easy. But to repeat the act a second time is very difficult and only true talented people can do that. Looks like I am not a 916 Hallmarked one...

@kikikikikiki (I hope all the 'ki's are in place!): Thanks, but i think I have seen a similar trick some years back. It was a list of 10 points and the author stated 8 points and concluded the e-mail by typing --
9. Regards,
10. Author's name
Please download the calendar and I would like to know what can be improved in it.

[kikikikikiki]

wow! not afraid to say that an idea is not yours! am even more impressed! but frankly, not so impressed with your calendar. sorry. firstly, i would not keep that calendar on my desk. if u ask me for reasons then i will probably say things like "if it was actually made of cardboard, yes maybe. just for the look and feel of cardboard. but picture of cardboard? not sure. the photoshop work is also not very good. the shadows don't look real. then comes the question of idea. ok so if your calendar does not look good, at least does it have an idea? no." sorry antz.

[antzfx]

@kikikikikiki:

Again, thanks for the comments.

So far, I figured out this: There are three types of designs in this world:
1. Designs that are eye catching -- good aesthetics; but no central idea or theme
2. Designs with a great central idea; but may be ugly due to bad execution
3. Obviously, good looking designs with great idea

What we all aim is for the number 3.

I found the following article quite interesting.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/01/how-to-respond-effectively-to-design-criticism/

Winston Churchill once said: “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” Regardless of where you work or who you work for, being able to take criticism is part of the job description.

[Sonya]

Thats a very interesting response. Perhaps one of the better responses to criticism that I have come acorss.

Kudos antzfx and great guns to kikikikikiki for making a very honest point!

[Desh Premi]

hey can see the april-july quarter of yoru calendar?