by Chiraz Aboujeot
December 12, 2020
31 Days In February
Usually calendars have 28 days in February. But in 1987 Chippendales printed a calendar with 31. That did not work out so well for sales.
Steve Banerjee prided himself to be a printer. He was the son of a large printing family in Bombay and went to printing school. August 15, 1986 was the day the mechanicals had to be delivered to Anderson Lithograph. Banerjee freaked out at the production artist pasting up the calendar mechanicals. The artist was a freelancer who did not want to stay late without overtime. Banerjee refused to pay overtime so the artist just dumped the mechanicals in a bag to go to the printer without finishing the layouts. February was printed with 31 days and because Banerjee did not check when he signed off on the press run – 300,000 calendars were printed with too many days in February. It ruined Chippendales and forced it into bankruptcy.
One Man Saw it All
According to the Anderson Lithograph salesman, David Humphrey, “Steve Banerjee signed the blueline. We proofed the color and made sure the press proof conformed to his mechanical. The client is responsible for the submitted artwork.”
How much would one of those misprinted calendars sell for?
If banerjee wasn’t such an asshole, would someone at the printer maybe have been like ‘um, you sure you want 31 days in every month?’ even though the “client” (in this case, the client was the owner…) is responsible?