A calendar of weather forecasts based on popular signs
- If the owl whistles by day in May, it’ll be a dry summer! — How do you know? Our family has been transferring this knowledge from generation to generation… this dialogue is the beginning of my journey to the world of ancient Russian Folklore. The souvenir «Calendar of Weather Forecasts by Popular Signs» is a project dedicated to oral folk creativity. It’s based on the observations of our ancestors about natural phenomena. It is illustrated every month by a few words that are combined into a whole story. The calendar was carried out as part of a non-profit training project of the ICU School of Design.
The problem you face a few months before New Year’s Eve is, «What can I get my best friends?» Especially if they’re… Russian folks. It’s very hard to surprise them, because these people are better at understanding our cultural code and keeping track of the new brands.
Jeanne and Sonya in fairy tales.
The solution is, when the whole Internet is searched for gifts, and the ideas from the TV channels start dreaming at night, I decide to hang out with my grandmother. She tells me about folk signs for weather forecasting. Then I think of the phrase, «You want to do good, you do it yourself!» And I’m doing a… a weather calendar based on popular signs. Our ancestors have long monitored changes in natural phenomena and tried to find patterns in them. And centuries — old observations of the world have been captured in signs that help predict the weather. The task is to select the most interesting and vivid popular weather signs for each month and to draw illustrations from them. Then you can gather the drawings into a unique New Year’s gift, a calendar that you can give to the Russian culture and the folks. To further develop the concept of products.
: Graphics
Each leaf has the same structure: modern and old-slavic month’s name, mini-calendar in the corner, ornament, color gamma, marks and illustration.
The compositions of the sheet combine several different stories into one story. Her heroes are animals or natural phenomena. Many references have been built into the plot, and the characters themselves have been placed in our time. As a result, events are beginning to develop in a different scenario. For example, the grove that arrived in early March announces an imminent warming, and the spiders that have appeared are talking about summer heat. But their neighborhood in the composition creates a new reality, where heroes rejoice in spring and have a good time… until the head of the family shows up. The illustrated style for the calendar is a re-thinking Russian meadow. This choice is given by simple people’s graphics. It’s connected to folklorics, creating an atmosphere of fun and joy, even if the picture doesn’t have a situation for it. In the illustrations, emphasis is placed on muffled flowers and uneven fillings that go beyond the edge of the contour. So landscapes and heroes are a little ridiculous, but they don’t lose their charms.
Lettering the idea of rethinking the meadow continues and will be accepted in writing style. Nedovyaz is a fun, crooked and slightly non-consensual flyer designed specifically for the project. He’s inspired by a drawing of ancient Russian knitting. For calendar names and months, as well as numbers, the font RF Dobrozrahnia is used, and for the days of the week, Roboto Condensed is used.
Concept of product
Concept of product: painting-anti-stress
Concept of product
