Catalog Design Process

[darksyren]

Anyone here do catalog work?

Are there any particular pitfalls you've experienced? I'm completing my first catalog by myself, and it brought to mind the fact that large document design(books, etc) aren't discussed here a lot. It's not my favorite work, but it's turning out to be my bread and butter.

Comments

[radiosilents]

I do! I'm the Marketing Graphic Designer at my company, so I design all the advertising and catalogs. We've got four catalogs that get produced, and they are all quite different. I'd never worked on anything longer than a 20-page brochure before, so it was a bit challenging initially, but I actually enjoy it... of course, I am given a lot of latitude as far as improving the overall designs which is really fun.

I work for a small publisher, btw, so it's books, books, books. :)

[x_1013_x]

Hey, another book person! Yay!

yep yep yep

[talazia]

I have just finished a 165 catalog in which I did most of the photos in addition to the layout, etc.

for me, he hardest part is keeping the content organized. That is the hardest to do for me...

[x_1013_x]

I do it all the time. My main job is design of books and catalogs. The thing to remember is that everything is going to change...a lot. You start out with a list of things, maybe some descriptions, some prices, an order form or something of the like. In my experience, the powers that be will always want to add something, take something out, put it back in...it's endless. So I make sure my document is set up to handle all that shifting. Automatic page additions are probably a bad idea, it will just constantly shift your pages. Watch how you link text boxes too. Runarounds on pics are crucial. It's important to let the copy writer know that item pics will shift text and therefor they need to adjust their text amount. Keep page count in mind for print purposes because the writers and editors will forget

[top0098]

when design the catalog, keep in mind how often do they update. If they update monthly. Should design a template that's easy to update the product detail or price. If you know how to worth with XML on Indesign, it will make the update changes easier.

[lanisatu]

At my last in-house job (I work for them freelance now), their catalogue was a big project that I had to take over. I learned a lot doing it, and I fixed a lot of things that were done incorrectly. They were extremely pleased with my work :)

PDFs are here if you want to take a look. I have each section set up in separate files, and assembled in a "book" in InDesign. I make changes now and then, and update the online version after I've made enough changes to justify the export time. The printed edition was done by Quebecor at the end of last year, and I was really happy with how it turned out :)

I never really used Bridge before I started working on this catalogue, but I've found it useful for managing images. I also have separate folders for the images in each category.

I think my favourite feature of InDesign became "preflight" -- it was very helpful in locating mistakes that required correction.

I would like to get more work doing catalogues. But people seem to be more interested in having a company website now.