When designing a catalog, it’s important to realize that the catalog needs to be both ascetically pleasing as well as functional in design. Beautiful photos of your highly rated products won’t be effective if there is no organizational theme to the layout of your catalog. Here are 7 design tips that will help to design a catalog that people will want to flip through and will allow people to flip through easily.
1. Include clear, crisp photos of your best-selling items on the front cover. Also include page numbers to these items so customers can save time by getting to the “good stuff.” The bad thing about this technique is that customers might not browse through the rest of the catalog, so be sure to spread these items out logistically if possible, to get the customer to look at all the pages in-between.
2. Use emotions. This includes words and photos. Use text that connects with the reader like “You’ll be the envy of all your friends with this purse.” Appeal to the readers’ emotions, whether that be happiness, fright, envy or sadness. In photos, using a scary image of a burglar breaking into a home incites fright that might convince the customer to order an alarm system.
3. Include a “feature” page now and then. A consistent layout of 8 products per page increases readability, but can quickly bore the reader. Mix things up every four pages or so by including a “feature” page with a different layout than the others. Use larger pictures of fewer items and use different colors or design elements on these pages. If you use a circle as a text box on your “regular” pages, use a star as a text box on your “feature” pages.
4. Use white space freely. I know you want to save money, but cramming 16 items onto one page with no white space in-between the photos will just make customers put the catalog down. People’s eyes need time to relax between text and photos, if only for a second. That’s what white space gives them. White space also makes for a cleaner design.
5. Put your most spectacular, impressive products on the upper outside corner of all the pages. Then put a best-seller in the upper inside corner of all the pages. When people skim through a catalog, they generally keep their eyes to the outside edges of the catalog. This is the best position to catch their eyes.
6. Organize thoughtfully. If you’re selling clothes, put all the shirts together or all the pants together so that readers know where to go to find the clothing pieces they’re looking for. Keep it consistent from one catalog edition to the next. For instance, you could start with intimates, then tops, pants and shoes since that is the order most people get dressed. Choose an organizational theme and stick with it.
Whatever you do, design with your brand in mind. If your brand is serious, you’ll want models that have serious looks on their faces, not smiling goofy faces. A serious brand also wouldn’t use neon colors to design elements, but a children’s toy catalog might. Be sure the tone of the catalog matches the tone of your brand.
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