By: Zahoor Zahid
Johannes Gutenberg produced the first printed calendar using movable type in Mainz, Germany, for the year 1448, highlighting how essential calendars already were in everyday life for work, worship, and organization. Centuries later, Joseph Salmon transformed calendars by introducing illustrated turnover wall calendars in 1909, printed on postcard board and bound with ribbon. This innovation laid the foundation for the modern wall calendar, a tradition continued by J. Salmon to this day.
The familiar square turnover calendars emerged in the 1940s with the invention of spiral and wire-o binding. During the 1930s to 1950s, calendars also became icons of popular culture, notably Gil Elvgren’s pin-up calendars, which gained immense popularity, especially among wartime troops, and continue to be produced even today.
India adopted the national calendar based on the Saka Era on 22 March 1957. Beginning with Chaitra and consisting of a 365-day solar year, it is used alongside the Gregorian calendar for official purposes. These include its appearance in the Gazette of India, its use in news broadcasts by All India Radio, and its inclusion in calendars issued by the Government of India. Through this dual-calendar system, India successfully acknowledged both its civilizational past and the practical demands of global timekeeping.
The history of corporate wall calendars in Kashmir is closely intertwined with the story of the Jammu & Kashmir Bank calendar, which over the decades has grown far beyond a mere timekeeping tool. It has evolved into a cultural institution in its own right, becoming a familiar presence in homes, offices, and shops across the Valley. More than marking months and dates, the J&K Bank calendar came to embody a shared sense of local identity, reflecting Kashmir’s landscapes, traditions, craftsmanship, and collective memory.
Alongside the J&K Bank, other organizations—particularly traders’ associations, business alliances, and marketing firms—also began issuing wall calendars. These were often conceived not just as promotional material but as visual chronicles of Kashmiri life, showcasing heritage sites, handicrafts, seasons, and everyday cultural practices. Some corporate calendars also featured verses by Sheikh-ul-Alam and Lal Ded, bringing Kashmiri spiritual poetry into everyday domestic and public spaces. In doing so, such calendars played a quiet yet influential role in preserving and circulating images of local culture within the rhythms of daily life.
Over the years, J&K Bank calendars have generated such anticipation and emotional attachment that people genuinely look forward to having one displayed in their homes. What began as a simple corporate giveaway gradually transformed into a coveted cultural object, one that carried aesthetic value, regional pride, and visual storytelling.
However, this long legacy also brings expectations. Over time, the calendar itself has undergone a noticeable reduction in scale, from six pages to three, a change that has already limited the visual and narrative space once available to photographers and designers. Unfortunately, this year’s calendar marks a serious departure from the design sensibility that earlier editions were known for.
The most striking issue lies in the use of pentagon-shaped image frames. Photography, by its very nature, is composed in rectangular or square formats, a universal visual grammar dictated by camera sensors and lenses. Introducing a pentagonal crop is not merely unconventional; it is visually disruptive. No image is conceived, framed, or shot in a pentagon, and forcing such a shape results in the loss of compositional balance, visual flow, and thematic clarity.
This design choice becomes even more problematic given the theme of this year’s calendar: the rivers of Jammu & Kashmir. Rivers demand space, they flow, curve, expand, and breathe. Confining them within an artificial geometric form fractures their natural rhythm, stripping the images of depth, continuity, and emotional resonance. Since the original photographs were rectangular or square, reshaping them into pentagons has diluted the very essence of the theme, undermining the visual storytelling the calendar set out to achieve.
The intent behind highlighting the rivers of J&K is commendable and meaningful. These rivers are lifelines, ecological, cultural, and civilizational. Yet the design execution has unfortunately overpowered the content, turning what should have been a celebration of natural flow into a constrained visual experience.
A calendar of such stature deserves a design approach that serves the image rather than dominates it, allowing photographs to speak in their natural form while reinforcing the core theme. Respecting photographic integrity would not have disturbed the basic aim, on the contrary, it would have elevated it.
In the attempt to force images into a pentagon shape, the universally accepted two-thirds composition ratio, which gives photographs balance, harmony, and meaning, has been completely undermined. This ratio is not an arbitrary rule but a visual principle evolved through centuries of art and photography. By abandoning it, the images lose their natural rhythm and compositional integrity.
To accommodate this artificial geometry, the photographs have been heavilyedited and distorted, merely to fill a false visual space. In doing so, the very purpose for which the frame was originally captured has been defeated. The flow, perspective, and emotional depth of the images, especially critical in landscape photography, have been sacrificed at the altar of an ill-conceived design idea.
The problems do not end there. The colour treatment is deeply flawed, suggesting a lack of professional oversight. Greens appear unnaturally dark, almost black, while blues bleed into neighbouring hues, destroying tonal separation and visual clarity. Such colour inaccuracies point towards either poor post-production or an inexperienced hand at the design table.
Overall, the calendar presents itself as shabby, hollow, and visually unsettling, making it unpleasant to display on a wall, an unfortunate outcome for an object meant to be viewed every day for an entire year. One is left with the impression that the design responsibility may have been entrusted to a novice, without adequate aesthetic or technical understanding.
In short, this calendar is a design disaster, and its presentation does not augur well for an institution of the stature of J&K Bank, whose calendars have historically set benchmarks in visual quality and cultural representation. It is sincerely hoped that the concerned authorities will take note of this lapse and ensure that future editions uphold the artistic standards and public expectations that have long been associated with the Bank’s name.
Over the years, the Bank’s calendar has witnessed a steady decline, be it in the number of leaves, innovative themes, the quality images, the quality of paper, or the overall standard of printing. This deterioration suggests that adequate quality checks may no longer be in place. Among all advertising media, calendars enjoy a distinct advantage: they remain with the customer throughout the year, constantly reinforcing the advertiser’s presence and message. Unlike other media, which have a far shorter gestation period, calendars possess a lasting recall value.
It is therefore, both sad and unfortunate that the Bank’s calendar, once a coveted possession, has lost its monopoly to other corporate players. Their calendars now stand out for their diverse and imaginative themes, superior aesthetics, and markedly better production quality, leaving the Bank’s offering far behind.
(COURTESY: STRAIGHT TALK COMMUNICATIONS)