Wondering what calendar sizes will work for your custom calendar? Calendars never go out of style. They are still top-selling items because they are practical, useful, and often beautiful. People use them as appointment reminders, organizers, and life trackers. Most people mark the start of every new year with a new calendar purchase.
Useful and Beautiful Calendar Sizes
Even with the proliferation of digital planners and online calendars, printed wall and desk calendars are standard items in homes and offices.
If you’re in business, consider using a calendar as a free marketing giveaway. They are easy and affordable to print, and the range of types means you’ll find the perfect size and style to represent your company. Here, we’ll look at the most popular calendar sizes and their uses.
Wall Calendar Sizes
A wall calendar hangs on a wall or other surface where it can be seen easily from a desk or across the room. Wall calendars are useful for anyone who needs a quick visual reminder of upcoming appointments and a need to keep track of every day. If you’re thinking that’s everyone, you’re right. That’s why wall calendars are the most popular type.
They come in three standard sizes:
- 5.5 x 8.5 inches
- 8.5 x 11 inches
- 12 x 12 inches
Standard or medium calendar sizes
The standard 8.5 x 11 calendar is the most used. This is a medium or standard calendar sizes.
Typically, this calendar has one large image on a page with the calendar page below it. When folded out, it opens to 11 x 17 inches. It is an excellent choice for calendars that display artwork, photography, and other images.
With this size, the user has enough room for quick notes on each day of the calendar. To make this calendar incredibly useful, it should display the preceding month and the following month in a small, unobtrusive spot somewhere on the calendar page.
Small calendar sizes
The smallest wall calendar is 5.5 x 8.5 inches. When opened and used, it covers 11 x 8.5 inches in size. Like the medium-sized calendar, it has one page showing artwork and a second, lower page filled with squares and dates.
The smaller size is not as useful as the medium-sized one because it doesn’t leave much room for notes and reminders. It can also be hard to see across the room. However, it does have its uses:
- It can be hanged on a refrigerator, bulletin board, or other small surfaces.
- You can put it in a small room or narrow hallway.
- It’s portable and fits in a briefcase or tote bag.
Large calendar sizes
A 12 x 12 calendar is large enough to supply plenty of room on its pages for notes, reminders, and tracking the progress of a project. Some of these large calendars come with extra features like built-in, tear-out folders, pockets for holding important documents, or tear-off shopping lists. Their generous size makes them eye-catching and impossible to miss.
The largest size is known as a poster calendar and can be 16 x 20 or 16 x 30. These are extra-large calendars that are especially useful for companies and offices. You can set up one of these in a central location, like a meeting room or lobby, and be sure that everyone sees it. It’s also a good choice for outdoor venues, where you want your calendar to be visible from a long distance.
Large calendar sizes are great options for many people. In a business setting, a large calendar can be used to track sales goals, meetings, safety measures, and holiday closings. At home, they are impossible to miss, and the artwork really pops. However, one downside of a large calendar is that you must have room on your wall to hang it. These extra-large calendars are best for commercial purposes.
Desk Calendar Sizes
When it comes to desk calendar sizes, you’re usually talking about two calendar types: desk pads and folding desk calendars.
Desk pads are large pads designed to lay across the top of a desk. Instead of having to glance up at a wall calendar, you have the calendar right there on your workspace.
A desk pad is typically around 11 x 17 in size. Each page has squares divided into days and marked with months, days, and other references. It includes a thick, sturdy cardboard backing that keeps it stiff and protects the desk. It also may have a clipboard back that makes it easy to hang on a wall.
It usually has two pads in the lower corners that hold the current month in place. When the month is over, you pull out the page to reveal the next month’s calendar page. The corners hold the new calendar page in place until you’re ready for the next one, and so on.
A desk pad is incredibly useful, which is standard issue in most offices. It provides at-a-glance tracking, and the large calendar sizes mean there is plenty of room to take notes.
One downside to a desk pad is that there’s no room to display artwork. To combat the view that these pads are boring, some calendar publishers have added graphics, colors, and other elements to “prettify” them. However, they are not the best choice if you want a calendar primarily to show off art.
Folding desk calendar sizes
The other type of desk calendar is a folding or standup calendar. This is a small calendar that doesn’t take up desk space the way a desk pad does. Instead, it is a small calendar that fits on the corner of a desk.
The pages on a desk calendar are wire-bound, so when the current month is done, you flip the page and go to the next one. Usually, each page is a full month.
Desk calendars are versatile. They are small enough to use almost anywhere, and they are often paired with artwork to create attractive desk additions. They are a popular corporate gift item because of their small size, room for artwork, and ability to customize.
Typical desk calendar sizes are:
- 4 x 8
- 5 x 11
- 8 x 8
Smallest desk calendars
The smallest calendar is the page-a-day style desk calendar. In this style, the calendar is a block of bound pages. Each page represents a day, and the user tears off the page every day to reveal the next one.
Because they stand for a full year of pages, these calendars are thick. They must be a minimum of 365 pages. They’re small and blocky, typically coming in at 5.5 x 8.5 whether open or closed. The page-a-day calendar comes with adhesive binding that makes the pages easy to tear off.
Page-a-day calendars are often themed, and many come with other fun elements to add a note of humor to your day. There are page-a-day calendars featuring dogs, famous quotations, trivia facts, puns, jokes, and more.
Other Calendar Options
If the standard calendars and calendar sizes don’t do it for you, you have some options.
Page-a-day wall calendar: This take on the popular at-a-glance daily calendar is a viable choice for anyone who just wants to know what day it is with no extras and no room for writing. The typical size is 8.5 x 8. With this calendar, you get the day’s date in extra-large, extra-bold print and nothing else. It’s easy to see from a distance, and it comes with a wall hanger so you can hang it anywhere.
Two-pages-a-day desk calendar: In this format, the user gets two pages each day. One is for the date, and the other is for taking notes and jotting down reminders. The planner has a vinyl or cardboard backing with a large wire binding between the pages. When that day is over, they flip over the two pages to the next one. It’s a small calendar, typically around 3.5 x 5. You can buy refills for the calendar pages and continue using the base every year.
Planners: Some people find planners more useful than calendars. Others like to combine a desk or wall calendar with a planner, using the calendar at home or work while carrying the planner with them. Planners come in a variety of styles and sizes, but typically, they are 11 x 8. 5 or 7 x 10. Pocket planners are even smaller. The average pocket calendar is 3.5 x 6 or 6.3 x 3.8.
Ready to Print Your Calendars
Are you ready to create great-looking, practical calendars? Talk to Dazzle Printing. We’ll make sure the text and colors pop, the paper’s right, and the printing is flawless.
