Archive for June, 2009

Artwork for the 2008-09 calendar

The academic year

I do a lot of work for the education industry, and these institutions insist on having a different year to the rest of us. The academic year is a curious object; in the Northern hemisphere it begins in autumn and ends in the following summer. Southern hemisphere countries like Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have academic years from January to December.

Most schools and colleges in this country have a three term year; further complicated by half term breaks, bank holidays and teacher training days, (you can also add election days, snowy weather and arson,  although these don’t tend to appear on the printed copies in advance). Whilst we are adding complications to the mix, starting dates for neighbouring counties e.g. Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire don’t always and often match. Oh! one more thing, Easter insists on shifting about; this is apparently because it is a moveable feast, could this have been the first takeaway?.

If you’ve got to this point and wondering why it makes no sense, the Wikipedia guide to calculating  Easter makes it clear, it’s just too complicated:

The First Council of Nicaea (325) established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the vernal equinox. Ecclesiastically, the equinox is reckoned to be on 21 March. The date of Easter therefore varies between 22 March and 25 April. Eastern Christianity bases its calculations on the Julian Calendar whose 21 March corresponds, during the twenty-first century, to 3 April in the Gregorian Calendar, in which calendar their celebration of Easter therefore varies between 4 April and 8 May.

– from Wikipedia entry on Easter

I would suggest that all this makes no sense to any reasonable human being. As designers know well, things often work best when simplified [see witty example video below].

The five term year and why it makes more sense

There is light at the end of the tunnel: a system that means understandable terms of the same length, which accounts for Easter, Bank holidays and training days. The five term year works like this: five terms of eight week, then a two week holiday and in the summer, four weeks holiday = 52 weeks.

Calendar design

Louis Henri Sullivan once said, “form ever follows function” or in other words, the design decisions are based on the purpose of the thing being designed. The calendar for the five term year has five double pages, starts Week 1, ends Week 8, includes holidays, has space so you can write on it and sticks on your wall so you can see it. I don’t think it’s going to win any awards but, like the academic year, it’s been working well for a few years now.

One added bonus of this system, I’ve just thought of, is cheaper holidays, because you can book out of season when the other kids are still at school!