Colorful 2012 Non-Profit Calendar Awareness :: COLOURlovers Member Interview, Showcase & Giveaway

We bring you a great interview with Jason Allen, of Haft2.com, an intriguing firm that focuses on, yeah, you guessed it, color! The focal point today is to showcase their 2012 Haft2COLOUR Calendar Project, and absolutely amazing piece of quality!

Share this Post

Tweet

I was highly impressed with the presentation of the calendar. It was delivered in a nice silver tin with a branded paper wrap and a wonderful opening letter about the project and the Haft2 mission - I felt like I had just received a very nice gift!

Haft2 is giving away three calendars to some lucky winners on a fun challenge (see bottom of post). I would like to add that I just so happened to come across this project originally from the comments on our previous post about 2012 Calendar Print Trends. I just had to know more about it, see the real deal and get to know what Haft2 and Jason were all about. I'm sure glad I did.

Jason manages the COLOURlovers Haft2 account and he had posted their calendar in the comments. I simply couldn't pass it up, so let's get started!

Jason, tell us a bit about Haft2...

Haft2 is a branding and communications firm that specializes in colour strategy as it relates to branding. Our clients come from a variety of categories, with a focus on non-profit organizations.

Our President and Chief Colour Officer is Paul Haft. I've been with the company now for almost five years, and as Director of Brand Colour Intelligence, I oversee our own brand. We have an in-house design studio and are also fortunate to have a network of talented professionals in design, writing, digital, research etc., from whom to draw when needed.

Let's hear about this calendar project and how Haft2 puts up such a big effort to help bring awareness to these not-for-profit organizations...

We appreciate our clients and friends, and throughout the calendar year, send out a number of promotions to them, to celebrate special days and holidays. We customize each printed promotion with the recipient's name and send out anywhere between 80 and 300 pieces, depending on our client list, on the time of year, and on the promotion itself.

We've wanted to produce a colour calendar for years, and I'm so happy to say that this year, we were able to make it happen. We're always looking for ways to raise our non-profit clients' awareness and increase their fundraising.

We decided this year to create our first colour calendar, and make it a new kind of fundraising movement to highlight initiatives from across our past and present client base. We have given the program a name and a word mark which you'll see on the calendar itself. We have called it The Haft2COLOUR Calendar Project.

Each of the initiatives that you see highlighted in the calendar received a donation from us at the beginning of this year.

For the talent, we approached the designers in our studio and network, whom we are so happy to know, and feel privileged to work with. Each designer was asked to do either one or two (and sometimes three) months of the calendar. We only gave them a colour, and then assigned a month (or colours / months) to them, and asked them to come back with their own interpretation of that colour and time of year, however they saw it, through graphics and illustration. Everyone really came through, and did so entirely on a volunteer basis. We love the designs separately, but simply adore them collectively.

We printed an additional number of calendars which we've been selling at $30 CAD, (with shipping and handling extra), and all proceeds are divided among and given directly to the 11 initiatives highlighted in the calendar.

We look forward to continuing The Haft2COLOUR Calendar Project on a yearly basis. We're always looking to work with talented designers and writers, and would be open to speaking with anyone who'd like to volunteer their talent to be part of the 2013 project.

I'd like to add that on the back of each calendar is a portion dedicated to letting the artist explain their design direction as well as an area highlighting the artist, where to find them and their accomplishments, in so many words.

Of course, there is also the information about each non-profit. This year, that list included: UNICEF, Walk of Hope (ovarian cancer), Canadian Breast Cancer Association, iNavigait, CAMH Foundation, Herbie Fund, Plan Because I am a Girl, EHM (Evangel Hall Mission), CIFAR and December 2012 is a Select your own way of giving offering ways to do your own good deed.

I know that Jason (aka Haft2) spends a lot of time on COLOURlovers, so I asked him how they might use COLOURlovers and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they actually place a palette on their site.

On our own corporate site, haft2.com, we have what we call a "trend palette", at the far left of our homepage. I update the code every week to pick up our latest COLOURlovers palette. Clicking on the palette takes you to that page on COLOURlovers - Jason 

I was even further intrigued at how their portfolio displays, check it out (it's contains many more palettes on the site):

Calendar Giveaway & Contest Details

Haft2 would love to know what color you visualize the months of the year in. All you have to do:

• Submit at least one color and assign it to at least one month of the year.
• Describe why you visualize this color for this month.

If you need putting a color badge in the comments, see: How to share a creation.

Contest runs until Tuesday, this Friday, January 20th, 2012 (11:00 pm PST). Judging will be done by Haft2 and myself. There will be THREE winners. Winners will be announced in the comments and contacted via Love Notes to claim your Calendar prize.

I have really enjoyed getting to know Jason and learning more about Haft2.

Calendars are $30 CAD (plus shipping and handling) and can be ordered by emailing us at hello@haft2.com.

Connect with Haft2: Facebook | Twitter | Haft2 (on COLOURlovers)

Also an awesome blog, HAFT2KNOW is the official colour, brand and trend blog of Haft2. There is an English and French version of the blog. Good to know!