- For Your Eyes Only -

Fire, Water, Earth, Air and Love – The Scheufelen 2009 Wall Calendar

It does not happen that often that printed matter originally intended as an advertising medium becomes a cult item. In the past, the Scheufelen wall calendar has been awarded numerous international design prizes, thereby building a reputation in the graphics sector. Strichpunkt is setting entirely new and unique highlights for the 2009 calendar: 2,009 originals, each with 12 individual calendar sheets, have been designed and printed in an innovative process. The 4 basic elements of fire, water, earth and air are prerequisites for paper manufacturing and therefore for the actual calendar; love as a fifth element makes an inspiring and future-oriented contribution towards transforming standard paper into premium paper.

There are 12 different motifs for each of the 5 elements. More than 1,000 combinations were tested before the optimum motifs were co-ordinated. Each individual calendar sheet is therefore an original thanks to the combination of five printing and finishing processes as well as permanent restacking of the actual paper sheets. The 5 elements, the 12 months of the year and a total of 60 different motifs give rise to a figure in the region of 126, i.e. 2,985,984 different combination possibilities. Of these, 57,000 variations were printed using 48 special colours on 8 different types of paper and a total of 24,108 sheets selected for the 2,009 calendars.

This took 80 hours of printing and another 160 hours for sorting the sheets. Result: 2,009 strictly limited, numbered and hand-signed calendars, each featuring 12 unique monthly sheets. Creativity and skilled craftsmanship are the basis for designing and developing such unique items. For this reason, the partners initiating this joint project (Strichpunkt GmbH / Verlag Hermann Schmidt Mainz / Graphische Betriebe Eberl and Papierfabrik Scheufelen) are committed to promoting the skills of young people. By buying one of these wall calendars, a voucher is also acquired which entitles the owner to participate free of charge in a further training symposium at Papierfabrik Scheufelen on 8 May 2009.