December 29, 2015

Catalog Design Transition

I find that one of the most interesting things to look at is the comparison of similar designs throughout the year. Overtime, designers are able to critique their own work, receive feedback by others, use data to drive design, and overall make better and smarter design choices that look and function better than the previous. Below shows just that. This is the evolution of a small category within the AmericanMuscle catalog: Vinyl Decals & Graphics that is within the Exterior section. The design shown first is not my own, but rather a former design by one of my design teammates at AM. At this time, we were experimenting with backgrounds and the Merchandising team was choosing a lot of products per spread since there are so many vinyl finishes. A designer created the "key" of several design colors, which was my launching point to creating "swatches" in 2014. Initially the key provided information, however, did not necessarily function throughout the design. Therefore, I introduced swatches as you can see below in 2014, and modified them to a more sleek design in 2015 which moved the slices to a horizontal orientation. The swatches eliminated the charts almost entirely, which was one of the tasks I had taken on. Also in 2015, I brought back the usage of lifestyle photography to show the vinyl in real life situations, rather than solely clipped out product shots. The key was also simplified. Overall, this layout has remained quite similar with some increase in swatch height and font size for 2016. I believe this layout design has come a long way from where it started, and accomplishes more within the space provided.









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