Ready to get organised for the year ahead? With a personalised printable calendar, 2026 can be your best-planned year to date.

Use our calendar design tips and templates to help you plan out your holidays, events, and key goals in style. Plus, design your own calendar to reflect your personality, brand, or memories from 2025.

In this guide, we’ll explain everything you need to know about creating a 2026 calendar using Adobe Express.

Why create a custom 2026 calendar?

A ready-made calendar is useful. But a custom-designed one is much more meaningful, personal, and fun to create. You can add in bank holidays, term times, and seasonal events that excite you. Here are other the benefits of using a calendar design template:

• Give your calendar a personal touch, featuring your own photos, quotes, and colours to make it truly unique.
• Create a design as a gift for friends and family, making a thoughtful present that’s packed with memories, birthdays, and reminders just for them.
• Keep organised by tracking appointments, meetings, content plans, or school holidays in a simple format.
• Boost your brand by offering a custom 2026 calendar as a creative promo tool or client gift.
• Mark your milestones like anniversaries, launches, or personal goals to help you stay motivated throughout the year.

How to create a printable calendar for 2026 with Adobe Express.

Adobe Express makes it easy to design a calendar online and turn it into a personalised calendar that works for your home or business. Whether you're planning to hang it on your wall, keep it on your desk, or use it digitally, you can customise every detail of your 2026 calendar and export your design in a few clicks.

1. Choose your photos.

Start by picking 12–14 images you want to feature in your calendar – one for each month, plus a cover image. You could use family moments, travel memories, product shots, or seasonal themes depending on the purpose of your calendar. Once you’ve chosen your photos, upload them directly to Adobe Express and edit your images as needed.

2. Pick your template.

To find the perfect template for your needs, browse our range of calendar design templates. Filter by style, colour, or format to find the perfect one. Choose from monthly calendars, desk planners, kitchen tear-offs, or minimalist digital styles.

3. Organise and edit.

When you’ve chosen a template and uploaded your photos, drag and drop each image into the layout. Use cropping tools, filters, frames and overlays to perfect your design. With Adobe Express, you can also customise dates, fonts, background colours and borders to create a calendar that is uniquely yours.

4. Add some finishing touches.

The benefit of creating your own custom calendar is that you can easily add personal touches. Try out icons for birthdays, holidays or business milestones and use text effects for month names or inspirational quotes.

With Adobe Express, you can also experiment with font pairings, layouts and calendar overlays, as well as other features for the perfect finishing touch.

5. Review and print.

Before you print your calendar, check that your layout is consistent across each month and all the dates are correct – remember some holidays change dates every year.

Once you’re ready, download your calendar as a high-res file (PDF or PNG) – ready for printing. You can also share digitally via email or social media in Adobe Express.

Designing your calendar: Final tips.

Before you hit print, here are some quick tips to perfect your printable 2026 calendar.

• Choose the right calendar size: think about where it will be used and pick the size accordingly. For example, A4 or A3 for wall calendars, A5 for desk calendars, or digital-only.
• Don’t be afraid to get creative: use bold colours, themed layouts, or even memes to make your calendar feel bespoke.
• Use a consistent font and colour scheme: this keeps your design clean and professional.
• Include useful info: think bank holidays, school terms, deadlines, or even moon phases.
• Leave space for notes: this is especially useful for content planning or tracking your habits.
• Proofread everything: double check your dates, spelling, and alignment before exporting your calendar.

Create your calendar template in seconds with AI tools on Adobe Express.

If design isn’t your forte, use our AI Template Generator to generate a custom calendar layout in seconds. All you have to do is choose your style, audience, and format (wall, desk, or digital), and the AI tool will do the rest.

You can still adjust the design as needed, then drop in your photos and important dates that you want to include. Creating your 2026 calendar using our AI Template Generator is ideal for businesses that want to create multiple branded versions quickly, or anyone who is short on time or design expertise and looking for inspiration.

Try Adobe Express for free now

Good to know.

How do I plan my 2026 calendar?

Start by noting key dates like bank holidays, school terms, and personal events then build in space for goals, reminders, and any recurring tasks.

What is a daily calendar?

A daily calendar gives you a page or section per day and is perfect for tracking appointments, work shifts, or journaling. It’s similar to a daily planner.

What is the easiest calendar type to use?

A monthly wall calendar with large boxes is a simple and versatile template for use at home or in an office.

Is Adobe Express free?

Yes, our free plan offers many core features including thousands of templates, photo editing and effects, animation, and 5 GB of storage. See our pricing page for details and to compare plans.