KeithSharplesPhotographyBlog :: Small is Beautiful but Bigger is Better

Climbing:2012 was rolling off the press this week and all being well it’ll only be days now before I’ll be able to start shipping – well over a month ahead of last year shipping date. Get-in… as they say…

As I said in an earlier blog, Climbing:2012 has been totally redesigned so it’s time to spill the beans. We wanted to bring a fresh layout to the market after seven years of the first incarnation - but I wanted to keep the same core values. So the calendar remains a celebration of rock climbing; it’s still UK-centric, it still features a range of dialectic venues and images, it still includes season images, it still reflects the diversity in climbing types and grades and it still comes bundled with a year planner-cum-poster. AND it’s still only £12.99!

OK so what’s all the small is beautiful but bigger is better stuff about? Well, Climbing:2012 is both smaller than last year’s calendar BUT it’s bigger at the same time and no, I haven’t been snorting the kid’s glue either! It’s smaller when it’s closed BUT bigger when it’s open.

So how’s this working? Easy, the calendar is now saddle stitched (a.k.a. stapled) rather than wire-o bound and landscape rather than portrait based. Think of it as a magazine but turned side ways. And yes, the bigger bit comes from a hike in the paper size – up from 420x300mm to 500x350mm (open). Having more real estate to play with it was a no-brainer – time to pump-up the images, around a third bigger in fact for the landscape images which constitute the majority in the calendar (nine out of twelve). Similarly, the date boxes are bigger too. We’ve also added two mini date-grids to each month page as well – one for the preceding and one for the following month. User feedback in action you see…

Here’s two pages to compare; firstly the all new layout first and then last year’s layout by way of comparison. Like I say – fresher, bigger and better…

We feel that we’ve knocked the ball out of the park on this one. It does mean is that Climbing:2012 users will be able to write-up more ‘must-do’ stuff than before. Top-tip for you; buy two coloured pens, one for your stuff and a second for your ‘significant other’ and the jobs a good ‘un. Yeah, and one more thing, don’t forget that you’ll need to buy bigger frames than before if you want to mount any of the images onto your walls as well! On the plus side, it’ll mean less wall-papering though I guess!

I guess I should also tell you that we’ve added a QR code to the back cover. What’s that you say – what’s a QR code? Yeph – that’s exactly what I said too to the designers. QR, or Quick Response, codes are the little dots and blobs – like a square barcode – that are appearing on products this year. Bang up to date you see! So smart phone users that have down-loaded a QR code reader get straight through to my website to check-out the latest. Cute egh! And if you want more guff on QR codes – get along to Wikipedia page here… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code

So what else should I say about Climbing:2012? We got plenty of wads in action including our very own Steve Mac and globe-trotter Chris Sharma. We got loads of different rock types including gritstone (at nite too), sandstone, limestone as well as some mountain stuff, sea-side stuff and some man-made stuff too. There’s bouldering, trad climbing and sport climbing and some comp action as well.

For more details check-out the images in the gallery here (http://www.keithsharplesphotography.co.uk/galleries/Gal_Climbing2012.html) and the individual pages on the reseller’s page here (http://www.keithsharplesphotography.co.uk/shop/reseller2012.html).

One last thing, as well as getting your copy from any good climbing shop you can buy your copy of Climbing:2012 as well as extra copies of the 2012 Year Planner-cum-Poster direct from me @ £12.99 and £2.99 respectively including P&P via my e-shop here (link coming PDQ...) and don’t forget to check-out the multi-pack and combo deals in my e-shop as well…

Coverted Front Cover this year goes to Sam Whittaker (how psyched is he???) in action in the depths of Thor's Cave - reproduced here a tad bigger so you can enjoy...