Compact and useful agenda

[ktinkel]

Last year I bought a lovely agenda from Typotheque (the type foundry run by Peter Bilak). It cost a bit too much, but had many advantages: small size (about 3.25 X 5 inches, 3/16" thick), lovely paper (slick, thin, but not too transparent; with some gridded sheets in the back for sketching).

I have been living by it, so went to the Typotheque site looking for the 2006 book, to no avail. Sent them an e-mail, and got a reply: the next one will be available in two weeks. When it is ready, they will list it on the web site. (Feel free to go pester them in the meantime, however.)

Just thought I would mention it. If you need a sort of minimalist calendar book, to enter appointments and other cryptic information, this one is lovely. The only thing that would make it better would be a Moleskini-style elastic closure (but I have done fine with a rubber band rescued from a batch of asparagus, just to keep the pages from becoming splayed in my handbag).

My only criticism is the short date format: European, so that April 8 looks like 8/4. That would be August 4 to me, of course. I wrote to suggest that in the future it would be less ambiguous (and more international) to use alpha months: 8 Apr (or Apr 8) for example.

No response as of yet (I have annotated my copy just to avoid making appointments for the wrong date!).

Anyway, I do recommend this. All the other agendas I have considered are either too large in format or too thick. This one is perfect!

[Ian Petersen]

My only criticism is the short date format: European, so that April 8 looks like 8/4.

Think of it as way to bring a little civilisation to the colonies. <g>

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by Ian Petersen

Think of it as way to bring a little civilisation to the colonies. <g>

Now, now.

Use of number slash dates are always going to be ambiguous unless you life in a very small place and never venture out of it.

You know that. Whether your way is superior to ours (or not) is irrelevant. Hrmmmph.

[ElyseC]

You don't use a PalmOS device any more? The agenda sounds loverly, but my Palm handles that kind of stuff for me.

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by ElyseC

You don't use a PalmOS device any more? The agenda sounds loverly, but my Palm handles that kind of stuff for me.

I bought an early Palm Pilot but never got used to using it. I like pencil and paper, and this little book fits neatly in the side pocket of my handbag.

[Ian Petersen]

Only kidding! But such a date is, after all, only ambiguous because a few misguided countries insist on writing their dates backwards! It's not ambiguous to a european - or the designers would surely not have used that format. Europe isn't that small ...

Of course one could argue we should all be using ISO dates but that's a whole other can of worms.

[Michael Rowley]

Ian:

Think of it as way to bring a little civilisation to the colonies

It would be more to the point if the diary gave all-numerical dates in the ISO format (today's date is 2005-10-11), but KT's other suggestion, which has worked well in anglophone countries for 60 years, is to give today's date as Oct 11 or 11 Oct.

One proviso, which I wish Americans would take notice of, is that October 11 2005 doesn't need that intrusive comma.

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by Ian Petersen

Only kidding! But such a date is, after all, only ambiguous because a few misguided countries insist on writing their dates backwards!

Doesn’t really matter why, but if you want an international market — and I don’t think anyone would deny that the U.S. and Canada make a large enough market — do not use ambiguous dates in a calendar. Seems simple enough to me.

Trying to impute virtue (or sin) to any society or culture based on how they abbreviate dates is just plain silly.

I mentioned my concern to the designer of the agenda, by the way. He replied promptly, saying it looked clumsy to add the name of the month. Although I am a pragmatic form-follows-function sort of graphic designer myself, I bit my tongue. I love this little book, so will spend half an hour again when I get the next one clarifying things by adding the name of the month to the top of the pages! That too is clumsy looking, but only I will know it.

[Ian Petersen]

if you want an international market - do not use ambiguous dates in a calendar

Obviously they (the designers) didn't want, or at least expect, an international market.

Trying to impute virtue (or sin) to any society or culture based on how they abbreviate dates is just plain silly.

Of course. But I can't help feeling there's a certain wilfull lack of common sense involved. I could forgive writing the month before the day if the US (or UK for that matter) used strictly ISO dates (2005-10-11), but that is not the case. Month-day-year just goes against the grain - at least my grain!

[Michael Rowley]

Ian:

Month-day-year just goes against the grain

It's traditional in England: nearly every English newspaper has it at the top of the page. After all, most people assume the year they're in, and really the year is just for the benefit of the few people that look at copies of papers from previous years.