If you’ve never designed a catalog before, this can be a lot to take in at once. There’s so many elements that go into a catalog, including photography, product descriptions, pricing, layout strategies and order forms. It’s not the same as setting up a simple page layout. You’re going to want to have a strategy and a template in mind, way before you start designing.

In this economy, with such tight budgets, designers may be asked to do additional work such as editing photos, paginating and maybe even writing headlines and other copy to break up the page layouts! For some guidance on how to get started in catalog design, and get a sense of how the pros do it, here’s a round-up of articles and resources from design firms, trade magazines and printing experts. These materials will cover basic catalog design principles and tips for creating catalogs templates that work!

All About ROI (formerly Catalog Success)
This trade publication focuses exclusively on catalog and e-commerce sales and marketing. Try searching on the site’s “Creative” tab, or check out these two tip-laden articles:

• 5 Creative Catalog Techniques That Save Paper
• Catalog Doctor: Break Out of the Catalog Mold

AllGraphicDesign.com
If you’ve got a graphic design question, this site can point you in the right direction. For cutting-edge catalog inspiration, check out their roundup of catalog design samples. And for catalog tips and techniques, here are three helpful articles that AllGraphicDeisgn.com links to:

• Catalog Tips and Tricks
• 10 Tips on Catalog Design
• The Catalog Production Process

Direct Magazine
A leading trade publication for direct marekters, Direct Magazine includes sister publications Multichannel Merchant and Chief Marketer under its content umbrella. Here are four helpful catalog articles found throughout Direct’s sites that include tips on design and making the multichannel connection work between a print catalog and website.

• Mind Your Creative – Tips on Catalog Design
• A Powerful Back Cover Can Help Cover Your Catalog’s Back
• Breaking Creative Rules
• Multichannel Mix

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Photo cards are a great way to share with family and friends.

Are photo cards addictive? I’m just wondering because I see them everywhere anymore. Every Christmas our mailbox is full of photo cards of family and friends. Every time one of her four children takes a new school photo or joins a sport, my cousin sends us a photo card commemorating the event.

Not that I’m complaining. I love photo cards. They’re so much better than off-the-rack greeting cards, especially since I can tack them on the fridge and build my own wall of family and friend portraits with little effort whatsoever.

My grandma loves receiving them, too, and it’s a cheap way to send out new family photos that can be used in frames and on fridges alike. My mother has a curio cabinet that she sticks received photo cards in; my sister-in-law frames them in a large display on her kitchen wall. My son tacks them to his bulletin board.

Ten years ago, photo cards were virtually non-existent. But today it seems as though we receive a photo card every other week. I’m considering sending one of my own every year – Grandma would probably like to get one of the kids – but I’m a little concerned. With the proliferation of photo cards (they’re obviously extremely popular), I don’t want to get hooked into something I can’t get out of.

I mean, I already have hobbies – like aimlessly surfing through television stations when nothing is on – so I’m a little afraid that if I start sending photo cards I won’t be able to stop. I could get hooked, unable to do anything else until I get my photo. It’s already has a hold on nearly everyone in my family!

So, are photo cards addictive? Either that, or… they’re simply fun.

Image use Creative Commons license via Flickr.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Rock star posters serve as excellent inspiration for unique baby announcement designs.

Let’s start with rock poster baby announcements by Rattle-N-Roll. Based on the premise that some of us are just born cool, you can design similar baby announcements that practically guarantee you’ll have the most popular kid in daycare.

Commemorate your special deliver with baby announcements inspired by magazine covers.

If your baby is destined for stardom, you could design a magazine cover birth announcement to commemorate her birth. Or make it a booklet, with interior pages that offer background on parents, grandparents, siblings and plenty of photos from your baby’s first few days. It will be a keepsake you’ll have forever … as long as the paparazzi don’t steal it!

Design a baby announcement like a B-movie poster.

If you harbor a penchant for B-movies and have a great sense of humor, take a cue from Brandon Buerkle. The artist created this birth announcement when his baby was born, and you can use it as inspiration for your own creative birth announcements.

Make your baby a star with movie poster birth announcements.

Five Star Baby designs custom baby announcements based off of popular movie posters, and you can use these as inspiration for your own theme-based baby announcement design.

Now it’s your turn. Use the inspirational sources listed here, add in a dash of creativity, and you can design some really cool birth announcements. When you do, send me a link!

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

It’s my turn this year, so I’ve been researching St. Patrick’s Day party invitations online to see if I can glean inspiration from others’ designs. Here, I thought I’d share with you a few of my favorite designs from the search.

I love a festive theme for St. Patrick’s Day party invitations, and this design takes the cake with patterned shamrocks that seem to pop out of a translucent shamrock background. A unique font that seems to mimic the outer edges of four-leaf clovers and the multi-hued green wave accents add class to this incredible design.

Unique and elegant, the suede background of this St. Patrick’s Day party invitation is the perfect backdrop for a faux embossed shamrock. This is one of the best party invitations I’ve seen for any holiday.

In my St. Patrick’s Day party invitation search I stumbled across the website of Erin Condren, and if you haven’t had a chance to check her designs out you simply must. Erin’s work is absolutely amazing, and even more so when you learn that she is a stay-at-home mom with twins! Here’s one of her party invitations…

… and here’s another. What I love about Erin’s designs is that they’re quirky and fun. She knows how to turn fonts into design elements and use a minimalist layout to make a lasting impression.

Last but certainly not least is this St. Patrick’s Day party invitation design that can’t be ignored. Risqué yet classy, this reminds me of those World War II era pinups sometimes seen on the side of planes, always seen on man walls and definitely a killer party invitation idea!

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

You might be wondering how free bookmarks can grow your business. Let me illuminate: distributing relevant bookmarks to your target audience (assuming, of course, that your target audience reads) lets you brand your company and pitch your products and services every time your customers sit down to read.

Let’s look at a hypothetical real-world example. A T-shirt company makes shirts in a macabre style, and their research has indicated that a majority of their customers read horror novels written by the likes of Stephen King, Dean Koontz and John Saul. The company decides to print bookmarks based on similar themes.

The bookmarks might include a list of the top 10 must-read horror novels, or they might depict images of werewolves, ghosts and psychotic lunatics. Perhaps they’ll draw from a long-dead author whose work is in the public domain, such as Edgar Allan Poe, for macabre poetry reproduction. No matter what they use, we can say that the bookmarks are designed in a vein that the T-shirt company’s customers will appreciate.

On the back of the bookmarks, the company features some of its top-selling products and offers a discount coupon code for online or phone ordering. Then it partners with bookstores, libraries, book clubs, and online book distributors to have them include a free bookmark with every King, Koontz, and Saul purchase, rental, borrow and order.

The customers get a free bookmark they’ll use because it is relevant to their tastes, and they get to discover a great product line they’ll love. Profits from the campaign (tracked via the coupon codes) are shared between partners, so everyone wins!

Image use Creative Commons license via Flickr.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Your company, A DAY IN MAY, specializes in unique wedding invitations. In light of the fact that wedding invitation design requests are so numerous, how do you go about creating designs that are special and creatively unique for each client?

Because we are first and foremost a graphic design studio we tend to attract clients looking for highly creative pieces that either tell the couple’s story (e.g. how they met, where they’ve traveled thus far, special interests they share, etc) or that focus on the wedding destination. We love to weave in special pieces that mean something to the client. For instance, we had one couple bring a pillow into our studio and we ended up recreating the pattern on that pillow throughout their wedding invitation booklet. We regularly design custom “logos” for weddings, wine labels as wedding invitations, jam jar labels for favors, etc. Whatever the case may be, we love to weave the couple’s personal story and lifestyle in with our sophisticated designs and lush letterpress printing.

What is the most important thing you need to know about each couple before you start crafting their wedding invitation?

It really depends on the couple. We begin each meeting (whether via phone or in person – we have clients all over the States and beyond) by asking them what they are planning for their special day. We inquire as to why they’ve selected their venue, what colors will be represented on their wedding day and their overall design style (modern vs. traditional). A natural brainstorming dialog ensues from there and normally by the end of that first conversation we have established a loose design architecture for their pieces.

What printing techniques do you employ to enhance your wedding invitation designs on paper?

We focus mostly on letterpress printing, which is our favorite; however, recently we’ve begun digitally printing as well, which is a less expensive option for our clients. Eve and I held off for months on offering digital because we were unhappy with the initial results. We wanted to make sure that if we provided digital printing it would be something that would excite our clients just as much as our letterpress printing does. We were thrilled when we finally solved the problem. We figured out that the digital printing wasn’t the issue, it was the paper. Digital printing is offered by most places on lower-grade paper and we realized that if we replaced the standard digital paper with our lush cotton paper it printed beautifully and was the level of quality that people have come to expect from A DAY IN MAY.

You and your design partner, Eve, live and work nearly 3,000 miles apart. What challenges do you face when coordinating projects long distance, and how do you overcome them?

Eve and I have worked together for nine years now and we spent many of those years working side by side in San Francisco. We only launched A DAY IN MAY NYC in 2009. At this point Eve and I can pretty much finish each other’s sentences, and there is complete trust and creative freedom between us. When a project begins, one of us is assigned as the point person so the client interaction is streamlined; however, behind the scenes Eve and I regularly e-mail designs to each other for creative feedback, we discuss estimates on the phone, we brainstorm design concepts together, etc. I also fly out to San Francisco regularly so we stay in tune with each other. I’m not sure how well this would have worked a few years ago, but today Eve and I are just a text, e-mail, call or iChat away.

What is the best business or design advice you ever received, who gave it, and how has it helped you?

I’m having trouble remembering one specific piece of advice that I received over the years, but I can tell you what’s served Eve and I well throughout our time running A DAY IN MAY. Creative folks tend to be uncomfortable early in their careers discussing budgets with clients, but it’s crucial if you want your business to be a success. Eve and I always clearly define the full scope of each new project and deliver an itemized budget at the onset. Graphic designers should never feel uncomfortable talking about money or getting paid for what they do. Each final piece delivered to the client (whether a website design, logo design, wedding invitation, etc.) is a beautiful work that’s representative of their time, creativity and client management and is therefore valuable.

For more information about A Day in May, you can check out their blog.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.