About

The Light That Day began with a question we could not shake: what did a day actually look like, up there, while something was happening down here?

Every date has a shape. The sun stays for a certain number of hours and then goes; twilight lasts longer in the north and burns quickly near the equator; the night is deeper without a moon. Add the weather that was recorded that day and you have something that belongs to that date and to no other. We lay it down in three fields of colour, tall in proportion to the hours they lasted, so a day can be looked at.

The Light That Day is made by FRo, a studio in Turin, Italy. The hours can be calculated. The colour cannot: which yellow a warm afternoon becomes, how much rose there is in a winter dusk, how deep a night runs without a moon — those are choices, made one at a time in the studio and written into the rule that draws every canvas. The sky gives the facts. The colour is ours.

The astronomy is calculated and exact. The weather comes from open scientific archives — NASA POWER, NOAA and Open-Meteo — and the place names from GeoNames.

How a canvas reaches you

We keep no stock and nothing is printed in advance. When you order, the artwork is generated at print resolution for your date and your place, and sent to a partner workshop near your delivery address — in the European Union, the United Kingdom, North America or Australia. There the canvas is printed with water-based inks, stretched and hand finished, then shipped to you in plain packaging with no prices inside, so it can go straight to the person receiving it.

Because each canvas is made for one date and one place, it cannot be returned for a change of mind. If it arrives damaged, faulty or not what you ordered, send us a photograph and we reprint it or refund you in full.

Talking to us

Write to hello@thelightthatday.com or use the contact form. A person reads every message, and we answer within two working days, Monday to Friday. If you are unsure about a date, a place or a size, ask before you order: we would rather help you get it right the first time.