If you want to give someone a gift that they’ll actually use, consider giving them a calendar that you customize yourself. Calendars are gifts that are both useful for staying organized and adding to someone’s decor. They can also be personalized to make the gift particularly special, showing a lot of thought and care.
If you want to make a custom calendar as a gift, you can design that calendar with photos, text, and artwork that mean something to the recipient. By infusing your own content, you can create a one of a kind, unique gift and ensure that the gift is meaningful to the person getting it.
Here’s a step by step guide for creating a custom calendar that looks good and is received well by whoever you’re making it for.
Choose the Right Software Solution to Create Your Calendar
There are many options to choose from when it comes to selecting the right software to create your custom calendar. Consider your needs when you decide which calendar design platform you’re going to use.
Do you want to create a calendar of a certain size or with a certain number of images? Do you want to completely customize the calendar or do you want a framework design into which you can insert your images and design?
Decide what’s important to you, then look at options that fit your needs. Once you choose your solution, you can get started designing your custom calendar.
Choose the Calendar Layout
Select the layout or design of calendar you want to insert your images into. You can select the layout by the pre-made design that appeals to you, or you can choose the format that allows you to insert the number of images you are hoping to include. Mimeo Photos offers a variety of layouts to choose from, including calendars with full-page photos for each month, calendars with small photos interspersed throughout on specific dates, and calendars that feature two or three medium to large photos each month.
Once you choose the calendar layout you’re going to customize, you can start to think about the images you’ll put in the calendar.
Choose the Calendar Theme to Help Pick Photos
Decide on the overall theme of the calendar to get started picking photos. Will you only be using travel photos in the calendar? Or, alternatively, are you going for a specific mood? Narrow down the central idea behind the calendar, then you’ll have a better strategy for choosing for your photo.
Some theme ideas that can help you get started are:
Romance: for a couple on an anniversary or a loved one on Valentine’s Day. Choose romantic photos of the people being celebrated.
Travel and Adventure: Remember all the wonderful places people have traveled by creating a travel calendar. Select images showing famous landmarks and stunning sights across the globe.
Pure Happiness: The point of a calendar may just be to make someone happy. Choose photos that evoke happy memories and show people that they live with big smiles.
Select Images for Specific Dates or Events
When you design your custom calendar, you’re going to want to choose images of people or places that are meaningful to the person you’ll be giving the gift to. Sit down and make a list of all of the important people that you want to ensure will appear in the calendar.
Then, decide how you will arrange those people’s images. You may want to consider including photos of important people on the pages of the month of their birth, or during the dates that you know those people are planning to see one another.
Alternatively, you can choose photos of loved ones or beloved locations from past occasions and holidays, then use those photos on the specific dates of those events or on the month pages when those events happened.
There are countless ways to customize the calendar, so choose the design that makes the most sense for the gift you’re giving and the reason you’re giving it.
Insert Images into the Calendar
Choose the actual photo files that you want to use in the calendar. You should be able to easily insert them into the calendar once you’ve decided what images you’d like to include.
Most software solutions will walk you through the process of designing the calendar, by offering you slots where you can add photos or images in with simple clicking or dragging-and-dropping. With Mimeo Photos, you can choose to have your calendar automatically filled with your photos. Alternatively, you can deselect this feature and drag and drop photos into your layout.
When you’re trying to think of a creative gift idea, consider creating a custom calendar. Custom calendars give people a place to keep track of important dates and events, and they offer you a place to infuse personal content that will mean something to the gift’s recipient.
By using the right software solution, being precise about the photos and images you include in the calendar, and being thoughtful about how you present the gift, you can ensure it is a present that is enjoyed for an entire year–and beyond.
