As it’s been said, a catalogue is a graphic piece whose development involves different steps, from its design to the printing. The phases we mention below are all the steps involved in the development process of a catalogue. With this information you will get to know all the necessary aspects to obtain a high quality piece.

First of all, it is of high importance that you indicate the graphic designer you have hired what the aim of your catalogue is, the look and the style you want it to have, and the message you want to convey.

Then, the target audience must be identified. That is to say you will define whether it is a consumer catalogue or a business to business catalogue what you need. Defining the audience according to its social, cultural and financial characteristics, will allow the designer to choose the right graphics and language. Apart from this, the audience will determine other aspects, for example, the quantity of products that will appear on the catalogue –business to business catalogues generally include more items.

The budget available for the graphic design, the printing and distribution must be defined prior to the development of the design since the characteristic of the catalogue will depend on this budget.

The designer and the client must come to an arrangement regarding the number of pages that the catalogue will comprise, the type and texture of the paper, the amount of colors that will be included, and the format of the piece.

The estimate time the design and printing process will take should also be considered.

A complete list including the products that are going to be shown on the catalogue should be made. Then, the products should be classified into different categories.

Every product should have a brief description, including the name of the product, its characteristics, the price, code, etc. Texts for technical catalogues are usually shorter.

A general layout for all the pages that the catalogue will comprise must be created. They will all share the same graphic aspects. The typography that is going to be used is also selected.

Then, the design of each page is carried out in isolation. This means that each specific page will have a specific design according to each category.

The approximate layout of the photographic elements in the design must be calculated.

There are different options regarding the pictures of the product that will appear on a catalogue: photographs, illustrations or renderings. Photographs are the most usual resource. We recommend hiring a professional photographer with expertise in products photographic shots. When the photographs are ready, they should be processed with a specific piece of software such as Adobe Photoshop. With this software, photographs can be corrected, colors can be adjusted and the picture format can be transformed into an appropriate one for printing (CMYK color, TIF format, etc.)

The design of the front and back covers must be created. Apart from showing the name of the company, the cover may include pictures of the products. It should also be quite appealing in order to draw the attention of the viewer.

Then, the designer must decide what will be the final arrangement of the elements and whether photographs will have a background or not. The layout of the elements should be clear, leaving blanks among them which will make the reading of the catalogue easier.

Once the catalogue design phase is completed, it is sent to the printer. The printer should be chosen prior to the printing for two reasons: to know the costs right from the beginning of the project and the way they work, and to ensure the printer will be ready –for example, they will have enough paper- for when you need to print the catalogues.

When the catalogues are printed, the distribution starts. For the distribution to be fast and effective, it is essential a prior preparation of a list with the people to whom the catalogue will be sent or the commercial presentation where they will be handed out.