Emparo needs a gift catalogue that behaves like a small book, not a paper mirror of the online shop. Around eighty gift-worthy products, organised into six themed chapters, should feel curated and calm enough to survive three weeks on a kitchen table. The brief is as much about restraint as selection: fewer visual tricks, more editorial confidence.
Overview & Goals
- Design a gift catalogue that reads as a keepsake, not a reprinted product feed
- Organise roughly eighty products into six clear, browsable chapters
- Build a product entry template that stays legible and phone-orderable even with average supplier photography
- Establish a reusable template so future issues can be produced quickly and consistently
Budget & Timeline
Layout and copy need to be finished with enough margin to hit the printer deadline of 20 October, so that finished copies can reach letterboxes in the first week of November. Chapter opener photography should be commissioned early enough to slot into the design before final pagination.
Publication & print
- Logo files
- Vector file (SVG, AI, EPS or PDF)
- Format & extent
- A5 portrait, 48 pages plus cover. Slightly smaller than the usual retail catalogue on purpose, it should feel like a book rather than a mailing.
- Binding
- Saddle-stitched
- Content
- Images ready, text missing
- Print run & paper
- 25,000 copies, uncoated 120gsm inside, 250gsm cover. Uncoated is deliberate even though it costs us some colour punch.
- One-off or series
- Template for future issues
- Handover
- Print-ready PDF for our printer
- Items to lay out
- About eighty products in six themed chapters: kitchen and table, home comfort, kids, outdoor, wellbeing, and under thirty francs. Each entry needs image, name, one line of copy, price and an article number.
- Product data
- A shop or PIM system
- Print colors
- Only screen colors
Target Audience
The catalogue speaks to emparo's best existing customers, who already trust the brand and receive it directly by mail, plus casual visitors met in person at two markets. Both groups need to be won over by feel and browsability rather than by price shouting.
Logo & Style
Logo to use
Files available: Vector file (SVG, AI, EPS or PDF)
Typography
Keep the current type
- InterHeadlines · Google Fonts, free to use
Colour
Colors to use
Measured on the material that was sent.
For print
- 5e7a64C44 M0 Y51 K48
- c6a86aC0 M13 Y59 K24
- 1f2a26C0 M0 Y0 K88
- f2f2f2C0 M0 Y0 K4
- 757575C0 M0 Y0 K64
Print definitions: Only screen colors
CMYK values are starting points for coated paper. The printer's own profile decides.
References & Moodboard
1 source captured. Click any of them to see it full size.
In the client's own words
For the first time we want a printed gift catalogue, mailed to our best customers in early November and handed out at the two markets we attend. Around eighty products across the categories that actually work as gifts, priced from twenty francs to about three hundred. The point is not to reprint the shop on paper. It should be something people leave on the kitchen table for three weeks. Product photography comes from suppliers and varies enormously, which is the hardest part of this job.
Scope & Deliverables
- Cover design, front and back
- Six chapter opener spreads built around commissioned photography
- A product entry template covering image, name, one line of copy, price and article number
- Full layout of all chapters using existing product images and shop data
- A reusable template structure for future catalogue issues
- Print-ready PDF handover for the printer
Do's & Don'ts
Do
- Design product entries that still look right with a mediocre supplier packshot
- Keep the article number clearly findable, since customers order by phone from it
- Set prices in a typeface with tabular figures so columns of numbers align cleanly
- Reserve commissioned photography for the six chapter openers only
Don't
- Do not fill pages with lifestyle photography the brand does not own
- Do not treat this as a reprint of the online shop layout
- Do not compromise the article number's visibility for the sake of a cleaner layout
- Do not choose display typefaces for pricing that lack tabular figures