work riso
It is a Mess of Happiness
2020

We had the honor to design and produce a calendar that showcased youth writings from 826 New Orleans, while trying to fall somewhere in the middle that would interest children of varying ages as well as adults still desiring to hang it on their wall that may not be the parents of the children involved.

Definitely the only light-hearted project produced during the pandemic that allowed me to quick abstractly illustrate youth writings, hopefully doing them justice in capturing the energy of their prose. The piece needed to feel coherent illustratively, and utilize a quiet but modular calendar system that focused on writing, but also could be functional and forward in design thinking, again, without going over the deep-end of the over-designed.

Being able to produce these in-house on our Risograph allowed for illustrative experimentation and playful overlays. While I had never designed a calendar previously, it was an interesting endeavor to combine these elements of communication into something coherent and ‘fun,’ for lack of a better word. While I sometime think the type of the prose could have been more playful, I think there was a enough going on, that it was best to keep it clear with a standardized layout throughout so it could be easily read across the room.

Client: 826 New Orleans

Children’s Poetry Calendars

3-Color
13 Pages
11 x 17, Wire-Bound
65lb. Cover, Ivory

Edition of 200