New mini-class: Automating Calendars with InDesign

Is there anything better than sitting down with a blank planner page, dreaming and scheming of future plans? Or is that just me?

As we near the final months of the year, I can’t help but get excited planning next year. Though there are numerous lovely planners on the market — that I inevitably can’t help but swoon over! — I have always resorted to designing my own planner. This dates back to middle school, has carried me into college, and even today I get the itch to create my own calendar based on my unique needs.

What started as a doodle filled blank Moleskine handmade calendar, has now taken a turn in sophistication to a full-on InDesign printable calendar. I can’t resist a beautifully functional calendar design!

The hangup?

I would cringe every year at the amount of production work needed to create a calendar.

Especially a daily edition! I’d finalize the design, only to dread creating the 150+ pages manually typing the dates. I researched the internet to no end for scripts and workarounds to automate the process, but nothing allowed me the design flexibility I needed or automated the process as I’d like.

So when working at the university and tasked with the student planner (hello dream project!), I took it on myself to discover a solution that would automate the planner for years to come within a single click. No more would the designers dread updating the planner, this once tedious process could now be resolved within minutes.

Until now, I’ve held onto this workaround for myself. It wasn’t until creating my personal planner design this year that I decided I should record the process and release it as a mini-class! 

My hope is that if you’ve ever wanted to design your own planner with InDesign, whether to sell in your shop or print for yourself, you will no longer dread the process.
 

In this mini-class we cover:

• Designing tables in Adobe InDesign
• Formatting your calendar design
• Utilizing paragraph styles
• Creating a year at a glance, monthly and weekly planner
• Setting up a template using master pages
• Automating your calendar for years to come!

So if you’re ready to get organized and create a planner template built for automation, I’ll see you in the class!