Listings of products and services can result in regular repeat business beyond the initial design due to changing prices and product lines. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity. You need a design that can be easily updated with ever-changing data whether it's photos, descriptions, or prices.
Catalogs can be large or small. Generally they consist of illustrations or photos plus descriptions of the products depicted. Any company that produces a number of products or parts for sale is a potential customer for your catalog design skills. Catalogs range from small booklets to perfect bound books of hundreds of pages.
Menus range from simple price lists to elaborate booklets with photos and illustrations. It's not just restaurants that need menus. Caterers or event planners use menus for their catered affairs.
Lists of products and services including price lists are another example of frequently changing documents that range from simple lists to elaborate designs. Similar to menus and price lists, events such as weddings, parties, and business meetings also often need programs that describe the order of events such as speeches and entertainment.
Designing Catalogs, Menus, and Price Lists
Businesses (especially small businesses) may have limited budgets so you'll have to come up with creative designs that save money too when producing these items that need regular updating. While every page or section doesn't have to be identical (that could become boring fast in a lengthy publication), aim for consistency throughout that allows for quickly changing out one product for another. You'll need a flexible grid or template. In general, catalog typography should be simple and unobtrusive. The product is the star.
It's likely that the client will supply product photos and descriptions, if not, you may need to work directly with a photographer and copywriter to get suitable photography and copy for the project. Good, clear photos that focus on the product along with accurate descriptions are important in catalogs and menus (if photos are to be used).
Just a few design features you may find yourself using in these types of projects:
- Leaders are those dotted lines often found in price lists that lead to the price or separate other information.
- Rules are lines used to separate, group, and organize information.
- Downrules are vertical lines separating columns or sections.
- Cropping provides a multitude of ways to present product photos. In some cases uniformity is important. Unusual crops can help put the emphasis on particular menu items.
Writing about Restaurant Menu Design, About.com Restauranting Guide Lorri Mealey writes:
"Your menu font and color scheme should reflect your restaurant theme. For example, if you are opening a Mexican themed restaurant, vibrant colors such as red, turquoise, purple and green would be good choices for a menu. These same colors would look out of place on the menu of a French bistro or Italian restaurant. Ditto for the font. A French bistro may have a classic script font or simple plain font, while a sports bar or other casual restaurant might have a less formal or playful font. Beware of choosing a font that is hard to read or too small."
Proofreading is always important but you may need to invest a little extra time and effort to proofread numbers and product descriptions. The client and their customer might overlook an accidental font change but when you get the price wrong it can have serious repercussions.
Printing Catalogs, Menus, and Price Lists
There are many paper options you can use but catalog paper is common for catalogs delivered by mail because it is strong but lightweight, to reduce mailing costs. For reference type catalogs or booklets (such as a parts catalog) consider more durable coated papers that can withstand frequent use. Menus and some price lists are often laminated for easy clean-up and because they are handled so much.One way to keep up with frequent updates is to use database-assisted or variable data printing. This would allow you to produce a catalog or product list by merging product data from your electronic database to create catalogs that are fairly static but also insert much more frequently changing special offers or limited quantity items or tailor the document by region or audience.
On a simpler scale, in How to Merge Data into a Product Catalog, former Ecommerce Guide Claire Condra writes:
"If you have ever composed a "Dear First Name" mail merge letter, you will have no trouble learning how to produce a catalog from your store database, because the process is basically the same. ... First you start with a list of data – which in this case, is your product information, and combine it with a document template that has been prepared with placeholders for the information you want to include."
Catalogs distributed by mail are sometimes self-mailers and others may have envelopes. The aptly named catalog envelope as well as booklet envelopes are commonly used for catalogs.
Software for Creating Catalogs, Menus, and Price Lists
You could do simple catalogs with Microsoft Word or Microsoft Publisher. For more complex layouts you'd probably do well to use professional page layout programs that can handle database-assisted publishing such as QuarkXPress, Adobe Framemaker, or Corel Ventura.16 Categories of Design Specialization
In some ways, catalogs, menus, and price lists incorporate elements of direct mail, brochures, newsletters, and business forms. Like newsletters, catalogs are often produced on a regular, recurring basis and while they generally have a consistent look from one issue to the next, the content does change as the products, prices, and specials change. A good catalog should always include an order form.- Annual Reports & Proposals
- Business Forms
- Catalogs, Menus, & Product Lists (This Page)
- Collaterals (brochures, etc.)
- Crafts & Creative Printing
- Identity Systems (logo, letterhead)
- Marketing Materials (ads, direct mail)
- Packaging
- Periodicals (newsletters, magazines)
- Presentation Graphics
- Publication Art
- The following sections are under revision and will be available by June 2012.
- Publications (books, manuals, booklets, etc.)
- Self-publishing
- Signage
- Web & Electronic Publishing
- Word Processing, Resumes
| Pick Your Path to Desktop Publishing | |
| Get Started: | Basic Guidelines and Requirements for Desktop Publishing |
| Choose Software: | Desktop Publishing and Design Software |
| Tips & Tutorials: | How to Do Desktop Publishing |
| Training, Education, Jobs: | Careers in Desktop Publishing |
| In the Classroom: | Back to School With Desktop Publishing |
| Make Something: | Things to Make Using Desktop Publishing |
| Use Templates: | Templates for Print and Web Publishing |
