Publishing Xpress offers convenient online catalog printing that can be custom tailored to your needs. Our digital submission process makes ordering your print catalog easy and affordable, no matter the quantity.
How catalog printing works
Wondering what it takes to print catalogs for your business or organization? Publishing Xpress works with a variety of clients and tailors catalog printing to their unique needs. Whether you just want to publish one catalog or plan to invest in recurring catalog printing services online, we are happy to help. Learn more about our publishing process. Our online calculators can give you an instant quote on your printing project:
New to catalog design? A great place to get started would be through this course, Introduction to Magazine Design. They do a wonderful job of walking a user through InDesign in terms of designing a magazine as well as answer many commonly asked questions about the design process. It’s a perfect course for the beginner and intermediate designer and it’s free!
While designing your catalog, always keep this concept in mind — the entire point of your catalog is to sell your company’s products and services. That should always be front of mind when designing your catalog.
Keep these tips in mind as you work on your catalog printing project:
We live in a visual world, so almost all catalogs will need photos of the products — usually lots of them. The photos need to be high quality, high resolution (at least 300 dpi) masterpieces. An unattractive photo of our product may mean that the product won’t sell. Before placing the photos in your catalog, make sure to convert them from an RGB (red-green-blue) format to a CMYK (cyan-magenta-yellow-black) format. Most cameras take photos in RGB and most online photos are in RGB. Since printing presses print in CMYK, the press will attempt to convert if you do not do so. And the printing press may not be that accurate when doing so, causing shifts in color. It’s best if you convert the photos to CMYK so you can make sure the final colors are correct.
It’s natural to try to cram as much information as possible on a page, but that tends to overwhelm the reader. It’s far more effective to have lots of white space on the page so the photos and products really stand out. Let your photos sell your products, not an overwhelming wall of text.
Decide on a binding style for your catalog. Your choice will depend on the type of product you are trying to sell as well as how heavily the catalog will be used. Perfect bound and saddle stitch binding are often used for fashion and other consumer goods in catalogs that are not heavily used. The consumer may look at it once or twice and then through the catalog out. Catalogs with industrial and other products sold to businesses typically will use plastic coil or wire-o binding. These types of catalogs are often used heavily throughout the year by corporate buyers, again making plastic coil or wire-o binding good choices.
Consider heavy cover stocks for plastic coil and wire-o catalogs that will get heavy usage. Heavier covers will add durability to the catalogs. Our heaviest cover stocks are 120# and 16 pt. Adding lamination to the cover will add some thickness to the cover along with durability. We also offer clear plastic covers for the front and colored plastic covers for the back. Another alternative is to laminate the front cover and use a colored plastic cover for the back. Not sure what paper stocks to use for your catalog? Send for our free sample package. Not only do we have samples of our four binding styles (perfect bound, plastic coil, saddle stitch, and wire-o), but the plastic coil book has samples of all of our papers. This will help you make a decision on the type of paper stocks you should select for your catalog.
Designing a catalog can be a huge project if you have tons of products to incorporate. Before you get started, review catalogs that other companies have published. What do you like about those catalogs? Which ones show off their products best and why? Which use the most attractive photos and what about those photos is appealing? How large is the font size in the catalog? What percentage of text vs. photos looks best? What binding style works best? You don’t want to copy another catalog exactly. But by looking through a lot of them, you will find different things that you will want to incorporate in your catalog.
What to look for in a catalog printing services company
You undoubtedly have spent a lot of time and effort with design and development—printing is the next big step. So think about what’s important to you. Is it affordability? Ease of ordering? The ability to customize? Great customer service? A quality final product? Publishing Xpress offers all of these. Catalog printing doesn’t have to be a difficult process—we try to make it as simple as possible.
Catalog printing is never a one-size-fits-all operation. We understand each of our clients wants a product that is unique, fit to match their requirements. Publishing Xpress offers a number of options for print size, quantity, paper choice and binding type. If you’re not sure what the best option is for your catalog, our representatives can help.
Contact us today for custom quotes on catalog printing
Find out what it’s like to work with a printing company with great customer service— contact us today for a quote. Be sure to check out our other book printing ideas as well.
