Everyday is a Holiday Calendar

A desktop calendar where nearly all 365 days are printed in red ink. Rather than waiting for the next holiday to arrive, this product is designed to let you live every day with a holiday frame of mind.

What if Every Day Were a Holiday?

When collaborating with teammates around the world, you often find yourself working while their local office is off on a public holiday. Strangely enough, knowing someone else is celebrating puts you in a festive, relaxed mood too. That sparked a thought: "What if we gathered every public holiday from around the globe onto a single calendar? We could live in a perpetual holiday spirit!"

I built a rough prototype and shared it on Twitter (now X). The response was unexpectedly massive, and nudged by an overwhelming wave of comments demanding, "Please make this a real product!", I started working toward commercial production.

Collaborating with Masashi Kawamura

As the project gained momentum, a friend pointed out that this concept was strikingly similar to Every Day is Special, a piece created back in 2010 by creative director Masashi Kawamura. Mortified that I had inadvertently stepped on existing work, I reached out to apologize in person. Instead of being upset, Kawamura-san warmly suggested: "It's a fantastic idea. Why don't we just make it together?" (Kawamura-san's note)

With that, our collaboration with the Whatever team officially kicked off. Guided by their professional eyes, the calendar was completely reimagined, elevating a raw internet hack into a beautifully crafted design product.

Release and Reception

Determined not to leave it as a disposable gag gift, we obsessed over its physical quality as an object you'd genuinely love flipping through month after month.

Since launching, our annual limited production runs have consistently sold out online. In 2022, it was also featured and sold physically on the shelves of New Stand Tokyo (Roppongi), Whatever’s boutique concept store for future daily essentials.

The calendar was featured in a lot of media, including Japanese (and some foreign) TV shows. I guess the urge to live everyday like a holiday is global.

Even on days you can't take off, keep the spirit of a holiday.

Credits

• Concept: Masashi Kawamura / Ken Kawamoto
• Creative Direction: Masashi Kawamura
• Design: Yoshihiro So
• Production: Ken Kawamoto