Inkscape Calendar of the Month: January 2024
By the end of each month, download your Inkscape calendar for the following month from vektorrascheln.de, featuring a work of art created by a member of the Inkscape community for the Inkscape About Screen Contest.
Learn more about this series at “Inkscape Calendar of the Month: January 2024”.
Find all previously published calendar months using the tag ‘calendar’.
January Calendar
The image „Inkscape 1.3 About Screen Contest“, showing an artist’s desk with tools of the trade and the words ‘20 Years’ constructed from vector primitives, has been submitted by Javier Samudio (License: CC-By-SA 4.0) for the About Screen Contest for Inkscape 1.3. The contest’s topic was the 20th anniversary of the Inkscape project in November 2023.
Download the January Inkscape calendar page here:
Download Calendar page January 2024 A3 (7063x9969px, PNG)
About this series
Originally, I started this series with calendar pages in German, in December 2022, as I was making it for myself anyway, I like sharing back, and also because it can serve as a source of regular fresh articles for my website, making the articles on here more visible in search machines.
This year, I’m switching to English, as I believe that will be useful to more people. To encourage contributions to the project, in addition to the calendar and the image, I’m also adding an inspiring quote from a member or contributor of the Inkscape Community to each calendar page. Maybe there will also be a way to turn this calendar into a gift for Inkscape Contributors, but that might be too difficult, due to shipping and coordination.
So, what’s special about this calendar? Each calendar page features a vector graphic, carefully drawn in Inkscape, by a member of the Inkscape Community and licensed under the the free CC-By-SA 4.0 license.
The images have originally been created for the ‘About-Screen’ contest. The goal of this contest is to create designs for the ‘About Inkscape’ dialog in Inkscape, for the Inkscape website and other important places, for each major Inkscape version. The Inkscape Community then votes on the winners.
As there can be only one winner for each Inkscape version, even though there are usually many great and creative entries made by the Community, it would be a pity to just let them collect dust and not use them instead of showcasing them. I usually do some kind of additional editing (like taking version numbers and web links out, sometimes adjusting color / moving elements). Signatures have been replaced by a name below the image, for a more uniform style. I did not add any holidays, as I expect people from various countries to download the calendars, and holidays are different across countries. The bottom part with the calendar dates uses colors that match the graphic.
How to print
Calendar pages are suitable for printing on A3 (297mm × 420mm), even though they are slightly larger (by 1mm on each side), as they were designed for printing by an online print service. You can also print them on A4, or even US Letter format, but you might need to cut some borders. They look best on matte photo paper - but normal paper will work, too. It doesn’t hurt if it is a bit heavier than the usual office-type 80g/m², though.
How to make your own magnetic calendar hanger
Materials you’ll need: 1 A4 sheet of paper, 6 to 8 strong magnets, 1 old curtain rod (white, metal, flat), some glue, and some double-sided tape
Tools you’ll need: A small saw to cut the curtain rod, some sand paper, scissors, ruler, pencil, optional: a level
For hanging my self-printed calendar pages, I’m using a self-made magnetic calendar hanger.
It consists of two long flattened rolls of paper (a little bit shorter than 297mm and perhaps 1cm high, after flattening), wrapped around magnets that have been glued on the inside of the roll, close to both ends and the middle of each roll, before closing and flattening said roll.
One of those magnetic paper rolls is then fastened to the wall with double-sided tape, where you want the top of the calendar to be.
Both go behind the calendar, one at the top of the page, the other at the bottom - that one does not need to be fixed to the wall.
Then I have two pieces of a flat, white curtain rod, made of metal, sawed to a length of 297mm, with sanded ends, which I place at the top and the bottom of the calendar page, so it sticks to the magnet-filled paper that’s on the back, and holds it in place. The bottom magnet-paper-rod combo makes the paper hang flat, due to its weight, while the top one holds it on the wall.
This makes it easy to swap the pages out each month, looks clean and is cheap to build.
Happy New Year!
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. You may share and adapt the contents, as long as you publish the result under the same license and give appropriate credit.
If you like to use Inkscape and want to support program development, consider to become an active member of the Inkscape community or to make a donation. Your effort will help make Inkscape even more awesome!
1 Comment ⚓
JavierSam ⚓
Thu 04 January 2024I am honoured that you use my design for this project.
Thank you very much.
Saludos,
JavierSam