New Year, New Planner

Despite the fact that calendars turn over to a new year on January 1, in my world, the new year begins at the start of the new academic year. This might have something to do with the fact that even when I was out of school, I was working in schools and universities. As a result, January 1 is far less significant to me than that amorphous August/September back-to-school period that screams in my ears, "it's a new yer, it's a new year."

A new year obviously demands a new planner. While my new planner claims to be for 2010, it starts in July 2009 and ends in December 2010. Thus it works for the academic year quite well, never forcing me to spend time in December transferring scheduled events from one piece of paper to another. Never mind that I spent some time doing just this yesterday.

In any event, for the past three years, I've used planners designed by the working class studio group (a division of SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design) in conjunction with Barnes and Noble. In general, I like several things about these planners: they are aesthetically pleasing (more on that in a moment), they label the dates but leave multiple blank lines across the entire width of the page for me to fill in as I please (generally with a color-coded system of meetings, lists, due dates, and travel plans...I'm a little nuts like that), there are ample pages in the back for notes (I save these as I jot down research, teaching, and, yes, quilting, ideas in these pages), and
they are durable (my last couple still look fresh after being tossed around in various bags for a year).

Back to the aesthetics, there are usually several designs each year. I did notice that they still have the yellow/blue/green circle pattern I had in 2007-8. I don't like to repeat things, so I will not be buying that one again. Last year's was periwinkle with blue/green/grey circles (I guess I have a thing for circles). This year's is my favorite: it's blue, it has birds, and it displays my favorite drawing style for which I don't know the name. You know, the thick lines with filled-in parts of the leaves and the birds that aren't exactly realistic but convey realism. Well, you can look at the picture and perhaps understand what I mean.

p.s. working class studio makes some other neat stuff. see it here.