How to Make a Calendar in Photoshop

You can get really creative with the calendar design, but whether you are making an official calendar or a creative one, the method is the same, you just have to do is change the layout.

Making a calendar in Photoshop is basically organizing layers and designing a layout. There will be a lot of copying and pasting, grouping layers, etc. Easy steps but you need to pay close attention to which layer you’re working on. 

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a customized calendar in Photoshop.

Now find your favorite image and let’s get started. 

Note: All screenshots are taken from Adobe Photoshop CC Mac version. Windows and other versions might look different. Windows users change Command to Crtl key. 

Step 1: Create a new document in Photoshop. It’s up to you what size you want the calendar to be, horizontal or vertical. 

A commonly used standard size for a calendar is 8.5” x 11”, but I’m going to create an A5 size calendar (about 5.8” x 8.2” or 2460 x 1740px).  

Step 2: Drag the image you want to use for the calendar into the Photoshop document. If you want to use a solid color background or pattern, simply go to the top menu and select Edit > Fill

I’m using this image as my calendar background, so I deleted the default background layer and name this image layer background.

Before adding text to the calendar, I’m going to bring out the guides to help align shapes and texts that I’ll create later. I suggest you do so as well. 

Hit the Command + R shortcut to view the rulers. Click on the ruler and drag it to the canvas to make guides.

You can create a rectangle as a reference to be the distance of your artwork to the canvas border. 

Repeat the same step for the rest of the borders. For top and bottom borders you can flip the rectangle horizontally.  

Step 3: Use the Type Tool to type out the year of the calendar. For example, here I made a 2022 calendar, you can simply change the number of the year accordingly. 

See, here I make sure that my content doesn’t go past the guides. 

Step 4: Create a new group and name it Jan (or January, anything that’s easy for you to recognize). This is going to be the monthly calendar template that you’ll be duplicating later. For the other months, you simply need to change the month and days. 

Step 5: In the Jan group, create a new layer and select the Rectangle tool to create a box for a monthly calendar, then create another narrower rectangle to show the month. For example, this is going to be the January calendar. 

Now we are going to type in the days of the week. You can use the guide to set the distance from the calendar box to the day of the week initially. 

Step 6: Type in the 7 days of the week and use the Align Vertical Centers tool to keep the letters in the same line. Then select distribute horizontal centers to make sure they have the same spacing in between letters. 

Use the same method to add the days of the month. January 1st, 2022 will be on Saturday, so I put 1 under Saturday. 

You can delete the rectangle now. 

January has 31 days, so you can duplicate the number 30 times, move them to the right positions and then change the numbers. 

Once you’re done, select all days of the month and group them. You can name it days

Step 7: Duplicate the January (Jan) group and name it Feb. 

The January template should be in the group folder. Select the February folder and move to the right. Change the month to February and the days. 

Repeat the same steps. Duplicate the folder, and change the name and dates until you finish all the months of the year. 

That’s about it. If you want to show more background images. You can lower the opacity of the calendar box (rectangle) layers.

Conclusion

The most important step of making a calendar is to create the first template, in this case, the month of January. Later on, you only need to move the dates around and change the name of the month. 

About June
June is an experienced graphic designer specializing in brand design. Photoshop is the essential tool that she uses every day along with other Adobe programs for her creative work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


  • Sammy

    It was easy nd wonderful please i m new to graphic design can you mentor me ma

    Reply
    • June

      Hey Sammy! Feel free to follow along with our beginner-friendly tutorials.

      If you have any questions, let us know 🙂

      Reply
  • Vivien Cheng

    Hello June,
    I’m new to Photoshop and doing a monthly calendar seems daunting. Wonder what would it cost for one to be designed for me for 2024 where I can use my own photographs to send it for printing. So this has a cover page with a title and 12 individual pages for the 12 months.

    Reply
    • June

      Hey Vivien, we’re not accepting freelance work for now.

      Reply