Catalog Printing and Design Tips

Use these tips about catalog design and printing to enahnce the overall effectiveness of your catalog.

Catalogs can be your single most important sales tool for showcasing your products and service offerings. Catalogs are extremely versatile in both content and use. The catalog printing format can also be used for other print communications such as annual report printing, operating or service manual printing and training workbook printing. Catalog printing tips is the right place for help in creating great catalogs that will maximize the power of your message.

About Catalogs - Reports - Pamphlets - Booklets
Catalogs can also be described as Manuals, Booklets, Reports or Pamphlets. Catalogs most frequently are full color (sometimes referred to as 4-color or CMYK) since research shows that full color delivers the most effective reader response. Catalogs can be sent as direct mail pieces or handed out to prospects and customers. Maximize your catalog return on investment by following our design tips and by having them printed by a reliable, quality printer.

Catalog Design Tips
What design choices must be made before getting a printing quote for your catalog project? Let's start off with paper for the cover followed by the inside that is often referred to as body or text pages. There is an old saying about the need to tell what's in a book or catalog by its cover. With that in mind, the cover needs to be your single most important and impactful page. Covers are frequently printed on a heavier weight paper called cover stock. Using cover weight stock results in greater durability and a heftier, more upscale feel especially for catalogs with 16 or fewer pages. The body or inside pages are usually printed on text weight stock. Text paper is lighter than cover weight stock. For catalogs of 20 or more pages it often makes economic sense to print what is called a self-cover book. This is where the cover and body are both printed on a relatively heavy text stock, such as 80 lb. gloss text.

Catalog Printing Tips
Catalogs can also have different color combinations on the cover versus the body. If you need your cover to really catch the reader's eye, make it full color and then save money by using 2 colors on the inside or body pages. Catalogs are typically printed in more than one color. Research shows that people respond more positively and remember longer full color images.

Catalog Binding Tips
Binding style is dependant on number of pages within the catalog and the look and feel you are trying to achieve. Most catalogs under 80 pages are saddle stitched with staples in the middle holding it together. A more expensive and upscale binding style is perfect binding. Perfect binding is also used for thicker catalogs, most frequently for those over 80 pages. Perfect binding is the term for gluing the cover to the backbone of the body pages, like the paper back novels sold at retail.

Catalog Ordering Tips
Make sure you place your order with an experienced and knowledgeable commercial printer with a reputation for quality, reliability and one that is easy to do business with. As with many important purchases the least expensive is frequently not the best value. Your local area printers may be able to do your job but printers with websites can do even better job with benefits like low prices, instant price quotes and easy online ordering.