6 Tips for Designing an Effective Brand Catalog

While catalogs certainly aren’t as popular today as they were 25 years ago, to ignore them in your sales and marketing strategy would be a major mistake. Done well, a catalog can bring massive returns. Here are a few design tips to ensure you get the results you’re seeking: 

1. Start With a Clear Purpose 

A catalog is more than just a catalog. It’s an extension of your brand – one that people hold in their hands, read in their living room, or flip through at their office desk. It’s a tangible element of your brands – one that people can touch, see, and even smell. As such, it must be designed with a clear purpose in mind.

Is the goal to position your brand as an authoritative leader? Are you hoping for a quick injection of sales prior to a particularly slow season? Are you pursuing a very specific niche or subset of your audience? Is education the objective?

There’s no wrong answer…just make sure you have a clear purpose in mind so that your design choices can be properly filtered through it. 

2. Choose the Right Size and Format 

The size of your brand catalog matters for a few different reasons. For starters, you want to think about visibility and how it looks when displayed. Will the catalog be mailed, or will it be placed on a retail counter for customers to grab one?

Elements like paper stock and binding matter as well. Is this a cheap catalog where you’re simply trying to lower the printing cost, or is this a catalog with a long “shelf life” that you want people to keep? The right catalog printing company can ensure you get the perfect blend of high-quality printing and affordable pricing. 

3. Nail the Cover Design 

In digital marketing, most copywriters work under the assumption that 80 percent of people will read the headline, while just 20 percent will read the content. You should assume the same when designing a brand catalog.

If the majority of people will never move past the cover, this is a pretty good indicator that you should spend a lot of energy and effort intentionally designing this part of the catalog. There are too many cover design strategies to discuss here, but always remember to align your design with your underlying purpose. (And in most cases, this means eliminating distractions and focusing on one or two tangible points of value – items that convince people to pull back the cover and discover what’s inside.) 

4. Keep the Layout Breathable 

There’s something to be said for crowded catalogs that pack as much information as possible into the pages. (Harbor Freight catalogs are a great example. The design looks ugly. However, there’s a reason the company continues to use the same approach year after year.) But in 99 percent of cases, you’ll want to use a simpler and less distracting design.

Think about your layout in terms of breathability. There should be ample white space, big margins, and adequate spacing in between products and content. This helps emphasize key elements of the catalog and avoids overwhelming the customer. 

5. Ensure High-Quality Images 

A catalog needs to be crisp and impressive. Grainy or pixelated images will detract from your brand’s image and make you look unprofessional. It’ll make customers feel like your products are low-quality.

When it comes to images, ensure product photos are taken with good lighting and proper resolution. (This means resolution that’s designed for printing – ideally 300 dpi or greater.) 

6. Be Thorough With Product Descriptions 

Unless you’re selling products that your customer is already intimately familiar with and has been exposed to hundreds of times before, assume that the catalog reader knows nothing about your products. And this is where product descriptions come into play. 

Good product descriptions not only educate and inform readers, but they also help position your brand as an authoritative thought leader in your space. The key is to be thorough, but not so thorough that you overwhelm and intimidate. (This is where strategic layout and proper use of negative space comes into play.) 

Generate Better ROI With Your Catalogs 

Catalogs are just a part of your overall marketing and sales strategies. But in a world that’s overwhelmed with noisy digital touchpoints, a tangible asset like this can make a big difference in how people perceive and interact with your brand. By implementing these design suggestions, you should see a noticeable improvement in your results.