Calendars are handy for keeping an eye on the future, of course, but they can also be useful in retrospect, serving as artifacts that remind us of activities and appointments long forgotten. The Life Calendar makes that backward-looking utility even more explicit. It’s a calendar you only fill out once the day is through.
The poster-size chart, designed by the Barcelona-based group Brigada Creativa, provides 365 yellow bubbles, one for each day of the year. When the day is done, simply draw how you’re feeling with a marker. The legend at the bottom of the sheet offers up five straightforward smilies as examples, from open-mouth happy, :D, to slanty-eyebrows mad, >:(, but I’m confident that Emoji devotees will be able to come up with far more creative faces (and ones that have more personal significance).
The designers call it a "new vision of a calendar . . . a journal summary, a nice way to have an essential overview of your days." And while true diarists will likely want more than a happy face to remind them of what transpired on any given day, the Life Calendar does at least prompt the same type of reflection, albeit on an extremely small scale.
The chart doesn’t line up with days of the week, which means it’s good for any year. If you’re thinking of getting it for someone as a gift, though, I’d just recommend making sure the recipient has as sunny a disposition as you think they do. No one wants to have to come up with a creative new way to express their despair on a postage stamp-sized canvas every night before bed.