The Logo & Print Catalog for Busy Designers

As a designer - whether you've chosen to specialize in print design or offer it as a side-benefit to your customers - you can't afford to ignore the opportunities that providing print design to your customer offers. Not only do you become a one-stop-shop, but your customer gains trust in your business because they know you'll take care of them from the first design steps to the printed work arriving at their door.

This guide assumes that you've already implemented or are in the process of combining print products in your design services, or that you rely solely on print design as your business platform. For the sake of keeping the article to-the-point, I won't go into extreme detail.

What will you get following the guide?Simple: A strong, clean catalog page template for your print products to be quickly and easily referenced by your customers.

A logo and print catalog isn't about your pieces of art, graphic design, characters, illustrations, or anything else you might design. It is for the sole purpose of printing. It's important to make the distinction. When you don't make the distinction, it's very easy to under-price your services - and under-pricing can be as bad as over-pricing because it shows your customer you don't have much faith or pride in your work.

First Steps: What You Need Before Starting

Before you begin designing your print catalog template, you need to make sure that you have the software (Microsoft Word is used in illustrations, but any software that can make tables will work; just remember that the software you use will impact how you dispense your catalog) and a few bits of information:

1. First, create a list of the print design services you offer. Start with Logo Design, then continue on to specific pieces like letterhead, postcards, envelopes, booklets, fliers, and anything else you are equipped to print.

2. Create or look online for a series of icons that represent each print design service you offer. Try to create or find a themed set that very closely matches the look of your website and graphics. I highly recommend freeiconsweb.com for their variety and quality of free icons in a variety of formats.

3. Next, calculate the actual cost of a single printed product. If you print t-shirts, for example, determine exactly how much it costs to produce the finished product (including all supplies, materials, and labor). Jot this cost down beside the service.

4. Now, it's time to take a look at your competition. If you've been designing for any amount of time, you probably have a good idea who your biggest, closest competitors are. Look for competitors who provide exactly the same services as you. If your target market is designing for kids, look for other people who do the same. Compare your actual cost to the price your competitors charge. What is the mark-up? The goal is to remain in the same area of pricing (seriously, don't try to undercut the competition too hard - remember how under-pricing can backfire) while making a fair profit. The easiest way to do this is to decide, based on how much difference your actual cost is and what your competitors are charging, a base amount of money that you will charge as profit. For example, if most of your competitors' prices are about $20 more than your base cost, you might want to add $18 to the base cost of your print products. Jot this number down and underline it. This is what you will charge in your catalog.

At this point, you essentially have a logo and print design catalog ... it just doesn't look pretty. That's what we're going to fix next.

About this Guide's Logo and Print Catalog Template

The illustrations referenced to in this article use Microsoft Word, but the instructions are universal to any editor that can create tables. You will just need to know enough about your particular software to locate the tools being used (make tables, manipulate cells, and add text). Very easy stuff.

The logo and print catalog template we're going to be creating in this guide is very clean, very easy, and very popular.

Once it's complete you can easily update icons, pricing, and descriptions so you have minimal extra work. Depending on the software you use and/or have, you can save the final catalog in a huge variety of formats for different types of distribution. From HTML that will be displayed online, to printing the catalog for customers, offering it as a PDF download, or including it on a proposal disc, you have a ton of options.

Designing theLogo and Print Catalog Template

This layout relies heavily on tables and cells to create a template that will look very sharp and clean in a way that only grid-like layouts can do. We'll start first by laying out the grid.

1. First, we're going to create a space for our logo and the title of the catalog. Each of these need to be in their own cells. So, create a table that is 1 column, 2 rows, at 100% width.

2. Now, we need some identifier cells that will show up above our products. Create a table just below the first that is 3 columns, 1 row, at 100% width. Label them, from left to right, "Item", "Description", and "Price". At this point, don't worry about formatting.

3. It's now time to start filling in the catalog with your print product offerings. Just tab at the end of the "Price" column to create your next row. In the first column, type the name of the print service (refer to your list) and place its corresponding icon beneath. In the second column, give a brief but detailed description of what the customer is getting when they pay for the print service. In the last column, list the underlined catalog cost from your list. Continue this way until each print service is listed - still don't worry about formatting yet. Reference the 2nd illustration attached to this article.

Once each of your print services have been listed, it's time to start formatting. This is actually a very important step that you'll want to take some time with. If you already have a cohesive style guide for your website and products, follow it carefully here. If you haven't developed a style guide yet, now's the time to do so. Add and remove borders to create focal points, play with fonts and text colors, cell background colors, etc. until you get exactly the look you like best. Reference the first illustration attached to this article for my final page.

When you're done formatting, you're ready to publish your catalog in the format(s) you like best.

Consider every medium that might be useful to you. Print them alone to be included in your shipments, include a sized-down version inside your brochures, include some of your most popular services on the back of your business cards or inside folded business cards, offer one service at a discount and lay it out in the same fashion as it looks in your catalog on the front of a postcard for huge impact - the list just goes on.
Use your imagination and try to think of ways that this catalog can be used in promotional efforts, and you'll find that the clean styling and easy-to-read information will reap huge rewards.