Day In, Day Out

They’re too big to be stocking stuffers. But otherwise, calendars fit almost any holiday shopping need. And in a media-driven marketplace in which trends can flare up and die overnight, the calendar occupies the enviable status of a commodity that gets hotter every year.

“Calendar sales have passed $5 billion a year and seem to be growing,” reports Dick Mikes of the Calendar Marketing Assn. in Chicago, which monitors sales from around the world.

“If you’re looking for a gift, you can find something that strikes a personal note,” Mikes says. “I just saw a calendar for left-handed people and bought it for my mother.” Indeed, today’s calendar world is a niche marketer’s dream. From their modest start as holiday handouts from banks and funeral homes, calendars now rival coffee table books in artistry, and come in so many choices that many malls have seasonal shops where calendars are all they sell.

“The mall stores have been good for everybody in the calendar business,” says Mike Brown, a partner in San Francisco’s Browntrout Publishing. With their merchandise organized by category, like a bookstore’s, the mall stores have helped push the trend toward the specific.

“Dog breed calendars, for instance, have really exploded,” says Brown. “It can’t be just bulldog--it’s English bulldog.” Five years ago there were no dog breed calendars. “This year,” says Brown, “there are 120--everything from Belgian malinoys to miniature schnauzers.”

What are some other ’98 trends? Depends on where you shop. The calendar-only stores in malls offer quantity, but bookstores are more likely to emphasize artistry and novelty. Some, like Vroman’s in Pasadena, turn over a major section of display space to calendars and start selling them in August.

There are staples. Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” calendar still leads the pack, along with Sierra Club and Ansel Adams. “People find a calendar they like and stick with it,” says Stan Hynds of Vroman’s. “If the publisher doesn’t print it, [these people] go crazy.”

Still, Hynds is always scouting for something new, and he found a winner last year with “The 1997 Illustrated Calendar of Fat” (Briones Studio), created by John Flaherty, who photographed foods that vary wildly in terms of bulk but have the same fat content--one chocolate chip versus five pounds of grapes, for instance.

“It was clever and sold well,” Hynds says. Flaherty has produced a 1998 version, along with an exercise calendar.

Dutton’s in North Hollywood specializes in art calendars, and the selections get richer every year, store manager Carol Hoffman says. “Customers come from out of town for yearly calendar shopping, and they buy handfuls.”

She says nostalgia is selling in the form of elegant European poster calendars and in those featuring such collectible American artists as Louis Comfort Tiffany. “African American artists are popular too. One of the best sellers is Romare Bearden [1912-1988], who paints jazz and blues.”

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At Rizzoli in Santa Monica, manager David Frank says his customers return every year to buy calendars featuring fine art. Cavallini, an Italian publisher, specializes in oversized calendars with etchings, botanical illustrations and pictures of food and architectural structures.

“And contemporary photographers like Helmut Newton and William Claxton are popular,” Frank says. “They run $19.99”--which makes them just about top of the line. Most calendars average between $10 and $14.

“It makes a good present because a calendar that’s expensive is still an inexpensive gift,” says Michel Choban of A Different Light, a gay and lesbian bookstore in West Hollywood.

The store does a big holiday business with calendars, Choban says. “It’s nice to have images we couldn’t have gotten 25 years ago, and the photography gets better every year.”

Perennials there include photographer Jeff Palmer’s best-selling “Focus” calendar, which benefits AIDS research. “Guy calendar” models such as Carl Hardwick and Steve Kelso are popular. The top women’s calendar is by Judy Francesconi of Los Angeles, who photographs beautiful women in romantic poses; another best seller is “Great Women of the World” from the Library of Congress.

Choban thinks calendars serve as important icons, as “something in your house you look at every single day that makes you feel good, cheers you up and empowers you.”

In any case, the national appetite for calendars offers comforting indication that the futuristic paperless world of digital information is not yet totally upon us.

“People like to have something concrete in their hands,” says Gail Glover of the At-a-Glance Group, a major calendar manufacturer. “Computers have not taken their place.”