Windmill Printing Calendar

The everlasting calendar that showcases top-quality print jobs and paper stock.

Windmill Print is a powerhouse of a printing business. Family-owned for 40+ years, they continue to deliver some of the finest specialist print and packaging around, for both new and exciting businesses and global household names.

We were approached by Mark and his team to help recreate the infamous annual printers’ calendar — a late-year delivery that every designer knows well. While functional and reasonably effective reminders of printer names and logo marks, they normally look cheap and/or boring, remain the same for 30(ish) days a month and take up valuable wall space and precious materials.

Worse still — even if you do use them, they only last for a year.

A new approach called out to us: a calendar that would a) Last longer than a year; b) Look beautiful on designers’ desks c) Showcase both the Windmill brand and the excellent quality of the printing they do, on superb paper stock.

We worked closely with the team at Windmill to develop a calendar that allowed for an elegant ritual to keep track of dates, while also looking really good and showcasing their ability as a print house, pushing the limits of what traditional single process print can do. We created a simple numerical system that resulted in a continual variation of days and months, cycling through 12 combinations of single process print finishes and selected GF Smith paper stocks.

In each printing, we aimed to ‘pair processes with paper’. For example, one particular paper stock was embossed to within an inch of its life, turning translucent as a result. We also used oft-overlooked but price-effective thermography to finish challenging surface textures such as Nopla (a paper stock made from seaweed) — always looking to celebrate the art of paper and print processes in equal measure and joyous combination.

Practicalities mattered too. Time on the press and material selection were all subject to strict budgetary and time constraints, so it was imperative that each sheet worked while not costing the earth.

The result is an elegant and functional calendar that takes pride of place on designers’ shelves, desks and studio spaces — avoiding (we hope) the dreaded paper recycling bin.