Product Catalog
davehenning (26 pencils) | Tue, 2005-04-19 15:09
ok, this has already been printed. but i want to know what some real designers think of it b/c where i work everyone says its good, but i am the only "designer" here so i dont really take their opinions seriously when it comes to this. so please just let me know what you guys think.
i am only including a few of the pages b/c they are all basically the same.
just so you know there is about 1/8 of an inch around the border that gets cut off (cut lines), but i forgot to do that when i saved the gifs for you guys to look at. sorry.
here are larger images:
cover
info page
product page
info/product page
back cover
all 5
thanx a lot
Commenting on this Image is closed.
I'm seeing some hierarchy issues on the cover. For example "product catalog" should in my opinion be under "Comtrol"... then "distributed by:" should be at the bottom someplace not getting in the way with the X logo and what not... there are also issues with size. There seem to be 3 dominate elements on the cover fighting for control.
On the up side I think the inside layout is very clean and professional as well as the back cover.
i wanted to pretty much do it the same way you just spoke of, but the man in charge wanted it that way. so you know how that goes... ha.
and thanx
I love the front and back cover. (Although, there is a fight between the elements on the front cover- the idea is good) Personally though, I am not a big fan of tables for the products. I prefer to leave them on a white background with a lil shadow or reflection into the white, but without framing them in. Then again, like everything in design, this is probably just personnal preference. I just find tables too old school or "MsWord."
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"Life is a dream in which you don't remember fallig asleep or waking up. Make the dream worth dreaming, don't just sleep in the idea of waking up." - PIMPTRIX
I would agree with PIMPTRIX.... tables are kinda old fashioned... BUT there are ways to make them look modern. I usually go look at different magazines at Barnes & Noble to gain inspiration. It always helps.... I don't recommend copying design styles but just for inspiration. If that helps.
What font size are you using? I see a definite need for more white space. If your font size was not 8pt then I would have suggested dropping the font size to 8 to get more white space.
Did you add a drop shadow to all the text? I would strongly advice against TOTAL drop shadows as it is difficult to read. I would never recommend drop shadows for body copy unless absolutely necessary or if it is done in a very subtle level of darkness. My personal comment on your drop shadow would be that it is a lil too heavy.
Along the same lines as the font size... I think if you could have dropped the font size and given a little more breathing/padding room for the different elements - that would have been nice. The copy is almost straddling the borders of your table and I would have liked more padding.
I think I am also seeing inconsistencies in spacing in different parts of the catalog. Unless it is an optical illusion I would advice on making those consistent.
Those are just some initial things that I noticed in your design. I hope I was not too critical and harsh. I apologize if I was but I am just giving you my honest opinion. I hope you will take it as constructive criticism :)
The only thing I see that, in my opinion, is a big flaw is the gradient on the back cover. Unless it is intended, the printed bc will show signs of banding. Now if that was intended, it's done and over with, but if not a quick solution would have been to add a monochrome gaussian noise effect. It doesn't have to be much, but this will change the values just enough, so the printer doesn't 'see' the values as similar or equal. The other thing that I personally don't like, are boxes around stuff (product pages) unless they are required to display data or remove an item from the rest of the content. In this case you could have either changed the background to reflect alternating background lines or minimized the box (in intesity and length) to a few short lines only. This would still give the viewer a 'list' feeling without having to resort to tell 'em so. Well, that my 2 cents.