Catalog design ideas that turn shoppers into buyers

Design a catalog that drives product sales!

For certain businesses catalogs are critical to their sales efforts. Regardless of what you have to sell, our marketing experts can help you design a catalog that really drives sales. Catalog design and layout may seem like a tough job at first, but we have a number of catalog design ideas, tips and hints that can not only make the process easier but make your catalog much more effective too. 

Develop a strategy for each catalog

Nobody knows your products and your customers better than you do. The first step in creating a great catalog is developing a very clear idea about what that catalog needs to do, and the best way it can influence your customers.  Size, shape, number of pages, and amount of photos or illustrations are important factors in shaping your catalog design. Remember that books, magazines and brochures are normally printed in four page groups. As you do your rough layout for the catalog, keep your page count in multiples of four.  Get a good idea of what will be on each page before you start the catalog design.  This will help smooth the entire process and keep your catalog printing costs under control.

Customer attention starts with a strong catalog cover

Your catalog won’t do much selling if no one wants to open it. Focus on creating a powerful catalog cover design, one that excites the customer’s interest and helps enhance the overall impression of your company. Given a strong cover concept, your catalog stands a much better chance of breaking through all the “marketing noise” out there and capturing your customer’s attention.

Quality images make a high quality catalog design

Successful catalogs make use of high quality images. One of the very best catalog design ideas is to make sure that you have digital photographs (or scans of photos) at no less than 300 dpi. High resolution images give you the best chance for success in printing.

Make sure you use a good image-editing program (like Adobe Photoshop) to prepare your catalog images to go to press. If your catalog is being printed on an offset press, set your images’ color mode from RGB to CMYK. If printing your catalog in black & white, adjust the images to grayscale. When ready your images can be submitted for printing as either JPEG or TIFF files.  Issues like paper quality have important implications on the final printed image quality. Always communicate with your printer before submitting files for production for best results.

One last word about the text

One other important tip to design a catalog is to remember that your catalog is a selling tool. Concise and accurate product descriptions in the text work best. Make sure to clearly state the price, any shipping costs, or any special instructions for the customers. Never miss an opportunity to list your business phone number, website address or customer service information (it is ok if it appears on every page). Make ordering as clear and as easy as possible for every customer and your catalog will be a success.