One of those things you really have to see in high-res display, or printed out large-format on paper, to appreciate. Designer W. Bradford Paley has created an unusual set of 25" x 26" calendars for 2007, offered as free PDF download for personal use — but you're really better off buying the professionally printed ones for $16/set. These are to wall calendars what Cory's "impractical geek watch" posts here are to regular ole wristwatches, though these do seem quite practical in a mindbent way. Snip from Paley's description:
It was designed to allow easy travel conflict spotting (since you can circle contiguous days with no weekend breaks), and to let people mark with one or two words the more important events during the year. It is printed on newsprint-like (though high-quality) stock, folded, and distributed in packages of three to help people feel comfortable using it as a scratch pad on which to plot their lives; inventing their own visual language as they go. (There is a topic on this Web site to which people can upload their visual inventions.)
The visual/cultural resonances with ancient native American calendars, mandalas, antique engravings of the solar system; the red weekends at the bright center and the wavy outer corona all have been turned to directly support the calendar’s use as a tool. It contextualizes every hour, even on a year’s time scale: if someone marks the calendar, then looks back in even as little as an hour, they will be able to see time’s inexorable march.
Update: Whups, looks like their server's inexorable march has been temporarily slowed by too many BoingBoing visitors. Check back later if you're timedout, vale la pena.
