I loved this project. The objective was to research a topic we found interesting that changes over the course of a month and make a calendar showing our findings. The catch is that the information can only be shown through the manipulation of type. In other words, no images or on-the-nose titles were permitted.

Hopefully, viewers can tell that my calendar is based on the intensity of the northern lights during the month of March 2023. My findings were measured through the KP Index, which has 9 distinct levels. Only 8 of them appeared in the month of March however so I made 8 levels of type manipulation and applied them to the dates each level corresponded with. (if on the 24th the KP index was 8 then I applied the 8th level of manipulation to the 24)

To achieve my desired effect on the numbers I first sliced them in a wavy fashion to imitate the northern lights and then printed 8 of each number. I then smeared gesso upwards on all 80 printed numbers. Next, each number was scanned, image traced in Illustrator, and cleaned up. After that came the layering of the numbers and the creation of a system that determined color and opacity for each layer. Finally, Photoshop was used to create a blurred effect that resembles the northern lights.

Mockup used to help envision what the calendar would look like if printed.

Calendar is 17"x11”