Fedrigoni 365 – 2019 Calendar design submission

Designed by TM Studio, Fedrigoni 365 is a promotional, charity calendar for which UK based creatives, design studios, solo designers and illustrators are invited to contribute. Each participant must submit a design to represent a date selected at random. The calendars can be purchased from Counter Print with profits to be donated to Shelter. Design studio Superfried was assigned the 29 November.

I had seen the first Fedrigoni 365 calendar the previous year and was extremely jealous of the contributors included. Now I had the opportunity to join them so I had to make it count! When developing experimental typography designs I often look for similarities in the forms of the characters. This helps to create balance, consistency of style or enables them to be combined into one single form. Fortunately for me the 2 + 9 shared many characteristics.

So I decided to try and create a challenging, single, interlocking form whilst still remaining legible. This was challenging, but I eventually managed to make the design work. However, although the idea was smart and it was balanced it did feel a bit flat, so I experimented with different techniques to render and style it. It was here the happy accident occurred. An ambiguous perception of depth via negative space emerged which helped to add an element of intrigue and impact.

I was happy with the final design – sufficiently experimental, yet still legible. Fortunately so were TM Studio and Fedrigoni as Superfried design studio was subsequently selected for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 editions. It is a great honour to be involved.