Debunking the Rules

Rules are made to be broken. That's just being realistic. The more you get people to live according to the rules, the more they would try to bend them. Not actually break the rules, but everybody wants to bend them a little or even try to go around it. Fact is, we seem to hate rules. Rules make our existence boring or less lively. Who would want to always play by the rules anyway?

Even in catalog printing and design, believe it or not, we also have rules. It's not much of letting your creative juices be stagnant inside you, but more of setting a standard for the others to live by. And believe me, there are a lot of rules catalogers have followed over the years that many of these have become established principles in designing catalogs. So what do we do with them? We just need to "debunk" some, or two, of them so that we may be able to go outside the box and get reassurance that different is definitely the way to get sales.

#1: The upper right corner of a spread should always have the bestseller.

Studies have shown that people's eyes first fall to the right side portion of a place. We usually take notice of things that are located on the right. Notice in every sale, the things that merchandisers want to get sold immediately are usually placed on the right side part of the store.

This principle also holds true for catalog printing. If you want your particular product to get noticed, put it in the upper right corner of your catalog spread.

To debunk it: Put instead in the upper right corner a product in your line that is different and unusual for your clients- something unique and quite catchy. That will definitely grab their attention, enough to make them want to sift through the rest of the pages.

#2: Simple typography; Limited typeface.

Too many fonts, as well as too small a type point just to get all the information in a cramped space can make your print catalog too hard for the eyes of the reader. Just remember that your information should always be readable and legible.

To debunk it: Present in bold and larger fonts the things you want emphasized. If you're having a special sale or you have a special benefit that can only be derived from your product, well, you just have to get bolder than that of the rest of the text.

The bottom line is, rules are there because they have been tried, tested and found to be effective. They wouldn't be thriving for many years if they did not bring the sought-after results. As catalog printing companies, you just have to know when to get conventional and when to go for different and avant-garde.