Author's hand-stamped 2024 calendar

This is a calendar. But I intentionally don't put it in the calendar category or any other category next to conventional commercial or self-promotional design. 

This project is both a piece of design and fine art printmaking and performative practice. 

The calendar is printed with a standard office date stamp used to mark office documents. Each stamp movement sets one date, after which you need to scroll the wheels to set a new date and put it back on the paper and leave the next mark. Repeat this for each day of the year, changing the day and month each time. 

The process is completely handcrafted, requiring patience and concentration. Therefore, although the overall design remains the same, each print is different and unique, leaving a place for incident and variability.

The calendar is printed with stamp ink on high-quality A3 watercolor paper and coated with a protection spray. The print run is open, but very limited: no more than 20 prints were created. Each copy is numbered with sequential numbers and signed by the author as an object of printed graphics. 

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This project addresses several questions.

The first issue is form and technology. As a designer, I'm constantly working to improve the quality of the product and learn new tools to do my job better and faster. But what happens if you use tools that are not designed for design? Inaccurate, wearing out quickly, and slow. How connected are the tools and the message behind the work? When does design stop deceiving and become more honest? 

In the process of experimenting with a stamp that accidentally fell into my hands, I saw that a calendar was drawn on the sheet, which accurately conveys a person's subjective sense of time. Sometimes it is compressed, and sometimes it feels stretched out. Some dates are imprinted in the memory forever, and some barely appear on paper and in memories. One day is a brick, and then they combine into five working days, two days off, and a short rest break in between. They all add up to that abstract idea of a month, a year, and time itself: fragile and changeable, but also unceasing and rigid. This awareness of time became another topic I focused on in this project.

All Ukrainians, including me, are now living in a true full-scale war. Loss of loved ones, forced emigration or internal displacement, constant danger and fear. According to sociological surveys, more than half of the people report a deterioration in their physical or psychological health. One of the symptoms is a different sense of time: in a situation of constant danger, it is difficult to get along with time as before. 

In my case, this slow and monotonous process helped me to be calmer and more focused in difficult moments, to reset my internal clock and to realize myself in the moment. Other but similar techniques are advised by psychologists to deal with severe stress. 

I also encourage other calendar owners not to put it on the wall in a frame and under glass. Instead, use it more like a planner notebook, marking certain dates or making notes. So, when a year passes, this calendar will become not only my graphic work, but a new one - co-authored by me, the author, and the owner, the co-author, who will have the right to put his signature next to mine. This invisible but real collaboration is also something I value: both in my work as a designer and in the support that people give each other in difficult times.