This is the fourth iteration of a personal art project that I designed to be usable as my own real week planner. It includes a few features I find useful, such as one week per spread, blank pages with grids, more than one ribbon, and a binding that opens relatively flat.

Because planners require large amounts of repetitive information that changes from year to year, there is a very real possibility for error. To reduce this risk, I created a custom Perl script to convert date data into InDesign XML, then flowed the XML into an InDesign layout. To reduce the amount of data that needs to be transcribed, I coded the Perl script to either pull special dates from reliable sources, or calculate special dates that can be calculated.

This year I chose Andada ht (designed by Carolina Giovagnoli) for body text because it has small caps, and Lato (designed by Łukasz Dziedzic) for heads so that the project will have some consistency with my blog.‍^[Note 1] I want typefaces I choose to have a gender balance, and choosing Andada ht accomplishes this.

This is an ongoing project.

This is the first in a series of experiments to use different techniques to create designs based on a short story called The Magic Fish. My goal for this particular experimnent was to create a booklet that feels like a regular novel that can be handmade and distributed at zine fairs or anime conventions.

The story itself, which illustrates the difference between physical objects and digital information, was written by artist Ryan Kelln.