Author: Amy Novotny
With the new year and holidays approaching, wall calendars can be a great way to display various types of photography. They can serve as gifts to friends and family or can be a way for amateur photographers to begin selling his or her work. At times, a printed and fully frame photograph can be too expensive for a client, but a calendar provides a more inexpensive option to enjoying a photographer’s images and supporting an artist.
Many websites provide tools for creating a calendar online that can then be printed through the website’s printing service. Some more well known options include shutterfly.com, snapfish.com, bayphoto.com and mpix.com. With these websites, the user creates an account and uses the website’s online software and templates to add photos to each page of the calendar. Designs can be selected for the background with some customization allowed. Prices for these calendars generally range between $10-20 per calendar depending on the size and quantity ordered. Purchase of individual calendars are on the higher end of that range but orders of 50-100 calendars can lead to the lower unit costs.
Another option for those looking to minimize calendar cost is a printing site called slategroup.com. This company provides a calendar template that can be downloaded into a photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop. The design of the calendar is completely dependent the user’s ability to navigate and implement skills in Photoshop or another software. The price is closer to $6 per calendar of the same dimensions if 100 calendars are ordered. If the user does not own a photo editing software or is unfamiliar with how to use it, design services can be purchased through the company at a reasonable rate. Here is an example of a calendar made through this website. The customer service was excellent and readily available to help.
Many website options are available depending on the needs of the person designing the calendar, the abilities of the artist, and the purpose of the calendar.
Amy Novotny is a Volunteer Trip Leader with Arizona Highways Photo Workshops. Twitter: @amynovotnyaz; www.amysimpressions.com