Fashion has Fashion Week. Technology has the Consumer Electronics Show. And letterpress design has “The Letterpress Calendar” produced every year by France’s MR CUP (aka Fabien Barral) [projects / website] and Studio Pression [projects / website], together with a fleet of top-notch designers.
Made available in both a “Dark” and a “Light” version, the 2024 edition is absolutely stunning. [Get yours here while supplies last.]
The front cover, designed by Kevin Cantrell, is awash in the intricate details and crisp typography for which he’s known, with Blue Hot Foil Stamping making the calendar name and “Creative Manifesto” tagline pop against botanical details rendered in Copper Foil. Additional Embossing makes this a treat for the fingertips as well as the eyes.
The front cover design is actually a slightly tweaked version of the one Cantrell created for the 2017 edition. Fabien reprinted it for 2024 because he wanted to finally see it rendered in Foil – something not used in the earlier version.
The back cover, too, features a powerful mix of Copper and Blue Foils, with the names and social media handles of the participating artists arranged in such a way as to suggest a jukebox or retro video game score screen. (So nice to see that our good friend Denis Widmann designed “December”!)
The cover, hand-numbered by Fabien, quickly reveals itself to be a sleeve, which holds the 12 calendar cards tightly in place. (The Dark editions are numbered 1 to 300; the Light 301 to 600.)
Also included are an additional year-at-a-glance card, and a desktop calendar holder.
The cards inside are as intricate and surprising as the cover.
First, they use 700 gsm Favini Sumo Black or White (depending on the edition), which not only makes them super-thick, but also eliminates the bruising that would usually be seen on the back as a result of the Hot Foil Stamping when using a normal cover sheet.
Each month features an inspiring phrase uniquely fashioned by a different designer. Even the Foils are slightly different in shade and finish from month to month – a Shiny Gold here, a Pink Copper there – with 6 different Foils used in all.
The bottom layout follows the same template on all cards, with the month and creator’s name in Foil on the left and the days of the month on the right.
Despite the use of different designers from 10 different countries, “The Letterpress Calendar” manages to retain a signature “branded” look with the editions that have come before – pretty impressive when you consider it’s been running strong for 13 years now.
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