Building the Juniper 2023 calendar

If you are a long-standing friend of Juniper, you might be accustomed to seeing our Juniper calendar sitting on your desk. To the untrained eye, it may look like a collection of wonderful photographs and inspiring quotes. But, for us, it is the culmination of a lot of hard work, thought, and creative collaboration.

Each year the Juniper team gets together in August and has a brainstorming session, discussing the messages we would like our friends to see each month of the following year. This year was no exception – apart from it being Emily and Ava’s first experience of the process.

We always look forward to these creative sessions. The tea’s flowing, the flip chart’s out and we’re all ready with post-its in hand. Nicki asks us “What should next year’s them be?”’ It’s a big question. On the surface, our calendars may just seem like a thoughtful gift but (just like everything at Juniper) every quote, every caption, and every image are intentional. The theme we pick for our calendar shapes our marketing content for the following year. One harmonious message - our golden thread.

As we congregated around the flip chart, we discussed the value we each bring to the team, how we work with one another, and how we’ve all adapted as the world of work continues to evolve from virtual to a blend of virtual and face-to-face. By the middle of our session, the paper was covered with ideas on the value we add to our clients and what sets us apart. Is it our 3P leadership model? Our receptiveness to change? Always putting the client first? We also went into detail about what’s important to us as individuals, at work and at home; balance, developing relationships, and taking time for ourselves – not just understanding the rhythm of life, but making it work for us.

Ah ha! Rhythm!

We had found our golden thread. Now we had our theme, it was time to start building the calendar with images, quotes, and key Juniper messages – all in the context of rhythm. Every aspect of the calendar went through a rigorous screening process. The images had to be relevant to the theme, and the month, and then link to each quote. Ava had the task of researching each quotee. Finding the right balance between impactful and historically significant was a challenge in itself, - we decided to change a couple of the quotes because they were contentious.

It’s hard to believe we started this process over four months ago, and now our 2023 calendar has been dispatched to 200 of our loyal supporters in 17 countries around the world, using overland postage wherever possible to reduce environmental impact. If you have signed up to receive one, we hope you enjoy this final limited edition - we have decided this will be our last Juniper calendar, the only product we now print.