How to make a calendar desktop

Making a Calendar desktop

Step by step instructions to make your own calendar desktop or for making one for somebody else so that you can earn money.

Here is an example of a calendar desktop we made recently. It can be saved as either a desktop background (one for each month of 2011) or it can be printed out: Free 2011 East London calendar. And another 2011 calendar desktop or printable we made, suitable for anybody, not just people in East London, South Africa Free 2011 Calendar with a water theme featuring 12 black and white photos.

To make your own desktop, with a calendar, an image for each month, and a corporate message you will need an advanced image editing programme.

The corporate message can be your own, advertising your business and website address or contact details (and give the desktop calendars away for free – people can save the images to their computers, and display the calendars on their computer or laptop screens, or they can print the calendars out and hang them up, showing everyone who views them YOUR business message and contact details.) Or, once you know how to make one, you can offer a service to businesses who also wish to give away calendars toward the end of the year, advertising their own business, by getting the images and business message details emailed to you, and making the calendar for them and their business, at a price.

We use Photoshop.

Following the step by step instructions to make your own desktop calendar outlined below will result in a desktop calendar that you can use yourself, distribute to family, friends, and clients, or use it as another product for your design portfolio.

Before starting, we decided on a few parameters that would affect the final product. These parameters were:

1) Monitor size: we used 1024 by 768 pixels, as this is currently still the most widely used monitor size.

2) Background colour: We decided on black, as images always display well against black.

3) Borders: We made our margins fairly wide, to enable people to print the calendar pages, and have space at the top to punch holes.

4) Images: We chose 12 images, one for each month, and then resized them to 1024 x 768. The resizing is arbitrary, and is up to you if you do resize or not. Bear in mind that your image needs to be visible behind a “window” that you will be creating. DON’T make your images the same size as the window, as you will want some latitude in positioning the image.

So, let’s get started.

You will need 3 base files to work with. The first is your actual frame; the second is your message, and then finally your calendar.

1) Open Photoshop, and create a new image. Use pixels as a measurement, and make it 1024 wide, by 768 high.

2) Fill the layer with a bright bold colour. We use navy blue.

3) Create a new layer.

4) Fill the new layer with the foreground colour of your choice. We used black.

5) Set your margins, top, right, bottom, and left.

6) Use your marquee tool, and highlight the area inside the margins you set.

7) Make sure you have the black layer selected.

Delete the area you have highlighted by using ctrl and x.

9) Get the size of the area for your Message. Create a new image of that size, and save it as message.psd

10) Get the size of the area for your Calendar. Create a new image of that size, and save it as calendar.psd

11) Save your frame as frame.psd

Work on calendar.psd now.

This will take a bit of time and experimenting with font faces and sizes, but you only need to do it once.

1) Type in the numbers 1 through 31, with 3 or 4 spaces between each number, so that you have a long line of numbers.

2) Type in the month name

3) Type in the initials of each weekday, starting with “S” for Sunday, and ending with “S” for Saturday. Leave 3 or 4 spaces between each initial.

4) Drag guides to position the elements you have created. Alignment is up to you.

5) Now position your Month.

6) Position your weekdays.

7) Check on a calendar to see on which date the last week of your current month begins. Position your cursor to the left of that date, and press enter. Check the date for the previous week, and repeat the previous step. Repeat until done.

Now you need to play with spacing, to get the dates aligned. Position it all where you want it, and save it as “month”cal.psd, and as “monthname”cal.png. The file type is important.

9) Now modify “month”cal.psd to reflect the next month. Change the name of the month, and fiddle the numbers around.

10) Repeat this process until you have created and saved a .png version for each of the months.

Send calendar.psd to a safe place, and then bring message.psd to the front. Use a similar process to create a set of messages, one for each month.

Okay, the hard work is done, and now the fun bit begins.

Save and close everything.

With a clear Photoshop, open your 12 messages, in the order you will need them.

Open your 12 months, in the order you will need them.

Open your 12 background images in the order you will need them.

Open frame.psd.

Follow this procedure for each month:

1) Select your image for the month, and copy it (ctrl and c)

2) Select your background layer of frame.psd

3) Paste your image onto the background layer (ctrl and v)

4) Select, and copy the month’s message.png

5) Select the top layer of frame.psd , and past the message.png onto it

6) Position message.png, leaving at least 40 pixels of dead space below the bottom line of text.

7) Select, and copy the month’s calendar.png

Select the top layer of frame.psd , and past the calendar.png onto it

9) Position calendar.png, leaving at least 40 pixels of dead space below the bottom line of text.

10) Now save frame.psd as the month you were busy with, in jpg format.

Go to the image you have just created, right click on it, and then click on “Use as desktop”. Minimize everything so you can see your new desktop. DON’T close Photoshop yet.

Check the bottom of your desktop, to see that there is nothing hidden away. If there is, you will need to increase the 40 pixel dead space in step 6 and step 9 above.

If all is in order, progress through the rest of the months, using the final procedure described above.

If making your own desktop calendar all just seems too much bother, there is an easy way to do it. Email us your images, your frame colour preference, along with the messages you want displayed and your promo message, and we’ll do it all for you, for R500, and email it back to you for further distribution.

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