Announcing the 2020 Montreal City Weblog calendar
Announcing the 2020 Montreal City Weblog calendar!
This is a low-rez preliminary PDF version of the tabloid-size document for comment. I’ve added some more historical dates, and quotes from blog regulars here and there.
Update: The preliminary version of the calendar has been taken down. You can now find the high resolution (35MB) and low resolution (4 MB) versions at the links indicated.
While sifting for quotes I came across some good comment threads worth rereading:
(Also, for comparison: the 2019 calendar (brutalism theme), 2018 calendar and 2017 calendar, the first two, which were created using historical photos and images.)
Dhomas 09:14 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
Hey, I made the calendar this year! Cool!
Max 10:34 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
I like the columnar visual theme. Very well done.
Brett 10:35 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
What’s the font you used for the quotes? I like it!
Also, can I suggest the EMSB building on the corner of Fielding and Côté st Luc. Imo the most impressive and imposing columns in Montreal.
Jo Walton 10:44 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
Those photos are really wonderful.
Kate 11:04 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
Thank you, Jo. I worked on them through the year and it was fun chasing columns all over town.
Brett: It’s a commercial script font called Josef K Paneuropean. I knew about the EMSB building but its columns are very plain and I was going for the more classical look. I won’t be doing columns again next time, but haven’t any idea yet what the theme will be for 2021.
MarcG 12:48 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
Link is broken, here’s the correct one http://mtlcityweblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/mcw_2020_prelim.pdf
MarcG 12:50 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
“Ramadan begins” is sitting at the top of the May photo
Kate 15:10 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
MarcG, thanks for catching that! Fixed.
Not sure about your trouble with the link. That was the link and I haven’t changed it.
MarcG 16:23 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
The link renders as http://mtlcityweblog.com/2019/12/14/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/mcw_2020_prelim.pdf when you view it from the single-post page http://mtlcityweblog.com/2019/12/14/announcing-the-2020-montreal-city-weblog-calendar/ – it has to do with the URL being relative. In your WP editor make sure you’re using an absolute URL and not one that starts with “/wp-content/uploads/” but rather “http://mtlcityweblog.com/etc”.
Meezly 16:35 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
Very cool! Appreciate the inclusion of the lunar new year.
MarcG 16:42 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
I notice also that some of the quotes have dates and others do not
Kate 17:22 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
MarcG, I had relative links and tested them in a couple of browsers and they always worked. I don’t know why they didn’t work for you, but I’ve made them absolute now.
Sometimes the dates seemed relevant and sometimes not. I’ll have another look before I issue the final version. Thank you for looking so closely.
Ant6n 17:47 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
Looks very nice, very professional.
MarcG 18:31 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
It’s not that they didn’t work for me specifically but that the links don’t point to the right place when you’re looking at the single-post page like this one http://mtlcityweblog.com/2019/12/14/announcing-the-2020-montreal-city-weblog-calendar/ because it has the /2019/12/14/ prefixed to the URL thus causing the final relative URL to be http://mtlcityweblog.com/2019/12/14/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/mcw_2020_prelim.pdf
Blork 18:36 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
Wow, the calendar looks great! And I really like the photos. Excellent choice of quotations, too. 🙂
Blork 18:42 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
Oh… there’s an extraneous “the” in Ian’s September quote:
“I’ve worked in enough restaurants of all stripes to know that the even the fanciest place…”
(Right before “even.”)
Kate 19:40 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
MarcG: you are right.
Blork: thanks for the correction.
ant6n: thank you. If I were really on my game, I’d’ve finished it weeks ago and had some copies printed. I always kind of mean to do that but then other things happen.
GC 20:19 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
Thanks for your work on this, Kate. And another +1 for the photos.
Tim S. 23:37 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
Nicely done!
dhomas 10:08 on 2019-12-15 Permalink
I know you couldn’t possibly include all the columns in the city, but I quite like those on the Sun Life building, which are missing from the calendar. The nearby Mary Queen of the World Cathedral also has some nice columns outside, and especially inside. I used to work nearby, so I noticed these two more than others around town.
Kate 10:33 on 2019-12-15 Permalink
dhomas: I know! But I had to choose, not just from the possible buildings, but from the photos I was able to get, depending when I was able to be there, what the light was like that day, how many people were cluttering up the scenery, and other factors. For example, at the Board of Trade building – it’s a surprisingly large building buried in an obscure corner of Old Montreal – I had to hang around for ages waiting for smokers to get out of the way before I was able to take the shots I wanted, and I nearly fell over a fence while lurking around the place.
A couple of buildings I wanted had banners slung around their columns, too, putting them out of the running, and I wasn’t doing interiors. Some buildings I like are, for reasons of angle, distance, typical lighting and so on, surprisingly difficult to photograph, at least I found them so. For example, I wanted to include the one below, because the pillars are unusual and it’s a frontage hardly anyone knows, but the hideous light at top makes it impossible to get a photo with any aesthetic quality:
I should have included the Sun Life, though. But I don’t think I’m going to do another shoot for this calendar.
Dhomas 11:00 on 2019-12-15 Permalink
Thanks for sharing that photo, Kate! I’ve never seen those columns before. I had to Google the “Montreal Foundling and Baby Hospital” to figure out it’s part of the old Chest Institute. I still have no clue where that entrance is, though. I assume we won’t have very much longer to appreciate those columns in person now that the hospital has moved out. It’s a shame about that unsightly light fixture, though; the photo would indeed be much nicer without it.
Kate 11:29 on 2019-12-15 Permalink
That frontage faces a little alleyway off St-Urbain, north of Prince Arthur. On Streetview there’s a For Sale sign outside. I don’t know whether the buyer will have any obligation to preserve those columns and other details. If I were buying such a building I’d think they were a bonus, but not everyone will.
Dhomas 20:18 on 2019-12-15 Permalink
I would definitely keep the columns (maybe change the light fixture), but I’m not in the market for any downtown real estate. I did manage to find someone who snapped a photo without the light on, though:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/martin_uj/3886165523
Kate 08:48 on 2019-12-16 Permalink
Dhomas, that’s not bad. I wonder what those pillars are actually made of – they’re quite unusual.
dwgs 15:50 on 2019-12-16 Permalink
I sent the photo to a friend with construction experience and his guess is glazed terra cotta.
Kate 20:54 on 2019-12-23 Permalink
That seems likely. Odd colour choice, mind you. Thanks (and sorry for late reply).