Fedrigoni 365 – 2019 Calendar design submission

Designed by TM Studio, Fedrigoni 365 is a promotional, charity calendar for which UK-based design studios, solo graphic designers, and illustrators are invited to contribute. The participants must submit design solutions to represent a date selected at random. The calendars can be purchased from Counter Print with profits to be donated to Shelter. Creative agency 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 typographic experiments I often look for similarities in the lettering. This helps to create balance, style consistency or enables the numbers to be combined into a single marque. Fortunately for me, the 2 + 9 shared many characteristics.

So I decided to create a single typographic composition whilst remaining legible. This was challenging, but after many design iterations, I eventually managed to make the creative solution work. However, felt a bit flat, so I experimented with different illustration styles leading to a happy accident. An ambiguous perception of depth via negative space emerged which created the intrigue and impact required.

I was content with the final graphical representation – sufficiently experimental, yet still legible. Fortunately so were TM Studio and Fedrigoni as design agency Superfried was subsequently selected for the 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2024 editions. It is a great honour to be involved.