CVSan 2020 Calendar

Every year, Castro Valley Sanitary District (CVSan) releases a joint Annual Report and Calendar (CAR). As a publication, the CAR is widely anticipated and renowned within the Castro Valley community, as it has been published each year for two decades — and I had the joy of working on the 20th edition.

I was taken on to map out and pursue the creative direction for the 20th edition, aptly themed "The Sustainable Home." The goal of this year's edition was to explore different ways residents and households can practice sustainable lifestyle habits, from zero waste routines to healthy wastewater habits.

The process for compiling the CAR was twofold. First, I needed to determine the best way to organize and design the Annual Report according to CVSan's accomplishments over the past year and their hopes and goals for the upcoming year. And second, I needed to tackle the calendar design. That included photographing residents for each month of the year and some change, creating the calendar layout, and connecting the design with the Annual Report such that the entire publication was cohesive and had a logical flow.

This page will cover only the case study for the Calendar portion of the CAR. For the Annual Report case study, visit this page.

22,000

Number of calendars printed and distributed to Castro Valley residents

5 month project

From start of design to final production

Creative Direction

In past years' calendars, the monthly photographs were primarily pulled from the year's events. The 2020 Calendar was unique in that each month was intended to be a resident photograph, taken entirely for the purpose of including it in the calendar. Additionally, each resident photo was intended to represent a different monthly theme of sustainability in the home. As such, it was a very exciting but time-intensive endeavor to pursue this new direction.

Process

The design of the project began officially in July when I joined the organization and continued until November. I was responsible for each aspect as outlined below.

Gather information → Prospect and photograph residents → Edit photos, insert into layout, iterate → Design month layout → Pass through stakeholders → Production and distribution

For the layout, designing functionality was my main priority. I wanted to keep the calendar layout for each month clean and open, with plenty of negative space and breathing room for users to write notes, events, and mark up the document in other ways. Only the essentials are included — CVSan events, holidays, closures, and other programs — and everything else is pared back in order to allow the photograph to maintain attention.