While I consider myself mostly a digital person, there are still some aspects of my life where I prefer to do things analog. Things like journaling, memory-keeping, writing to-do lists, scheduling, I prefer to do on paper and then just back up digitally. And while we all have calendars on our phones, I prefer to have a desk calendar beside me while working and my wooden perpetual calendar for decoration purposes. So there really is a market for people who prefer the analog way of tracking things so this product concept is perfect for people like me.
Designer: Above.Studio
The Gnomon Perpetual Flip Calendar has one purpose: to tell you what day it is. While you can get calendars or your phone to do that, this is more of an analog, decorative type of tool to have on your desk. The act of flipping the calendar to get to the next day, accompanied by a clicking sound, can be considered mildly therapeutic for some people. It’s basically like literally turning over to get to a new day, at least if you’re doing this at midnight or early in the morning.
The gnomon is based on the mechanism of the perpetual calendar and it works as it’s supposed to. You just rotate the head part through the simple mechanism of the device and you get the date for the day (which you still base on an actual calendar of course). The head is intentionally heavy to give you that feeling of turning it over and giving that unique, clicking sound. There are no batteries or chargers involved as the only thing you need are your fingers.
The head is made from brass while the body uses acrylic materials. It is designed to come in various colors, both the head and the body, to match your desk decorations or whatever color you feel like looking at every day. Using the Avenir Next typeface gives the calendar an even more analog feel as it brings back the 1920s. The numbers come in three different lettering types to match the colors of the head and body.
While I’m happy with my current wooden perpetual calendar, this is an interesting concept to look at. The mechanism and the act of turning over the head is something that may interest me if it eventually gets turned into a consumer product. You can never have too many calendars around you.
