Marking the days – an artwork for Instagram

I have a calendar hobby. About two (or three) years ago I purchased a Stendig wall calendar for my office. I got into the habit of marking off each day with a simple dot sticker, the kind of stickers you get in the office-supply aisle at the supermarket. Dots in three colors. I cycle through the colors in the same order, one per day.

When I look up from my monitor and see my calendar I can quickly get a sense of where I am in the month. More dots, fewer days left.

I bought some glittery gold star stickers. I’m a gentleman of a certain age and I need to trick myself into good health habits. Sober days get a gold star. No specific rule of thumb here, just that more stars is more better.

If a most of a month has gone by and I don’t see many (or any) stars, I know I’m fucking up.

I bought some glittery heart stickers in multiple colors. On days I get a workout in, no matter how small, I get a heart. More hearts is more better.

It’s a silly but effective game. Stickers are fun. I’ve found this little ritual to be artistically satisfying. At the end of the month, before I climb up on a step-stool to carefully tear off, roll up, and store the calendar sheet, I have a little collage representing the month.

I like the zen-like repetition of marking off each day. I like the bright colors of the stickers, and I also like that the symbolism of the dots, hearts, and stars is only meaningful to me.

I thought it might be fun (for me) to take this idea over to Instagram. After Instagram changed their profile format, I tried to reinvent my account as a kind of visual blog.

I found that to be unrewarding. Instead what if I do the Warholian thing and post the same thing every day?

In Sketch I created a giant art board full of calendar days. I riffed (ripped off) the Stendig calendar design and typeset everything in Helvetica bold, and alternated each day - dark on light, light on dark.

I created digital versions of my dot stickers and my star stickers. I realized I could create any sticker I wanted from emoji characters. I created a little algorithm to mark the days with stickers.

Odd days get an orange dot

Even days get a blue dot

Days divisible by three get an additional pink dot

Prime-numbered days get a star

Mondays get a skull (no one likes Mondays)

Thursdays gets a wine glass, because Thursday is when we go out on the town

Holidays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve get relevant emoji.

And there are scribbles.

On a traditional paper calendar you might scratch out days with a pencil. You might circle important days in red. Using Procreate on my iPad, I chose a marker brush and created 7 different scribble types, circles, slashes, scratch-outs, check marks, etc. Each day gets a different scribble. I converted the scribbles into three colors: red, green, and blue. Each week gets a different color.

With my algorithm in place, I created a calendar image for each day for the rest of the year, starting in October, ending on New Year’s Eve.