It has only been forever since I've posted any design or creative work. To get up to speed-in November of 2018 I landed a new job as a Senior Graphic Designer at Lancaster Archery Supply (LAS). My number one duty is to produce their annual Lancaster Archery Archer's Wishbook, a now 500+ page publication. I am the sole designer for this project, working directly with Purchasing and the President of the company. The bulk of my production begins around February 1st. I then send off the publication to the print vendor around the beginning of May, so the catalog hits homes by the first week of June.
Since being at Lancaster Archery, I have produced two annual catalogs. In the first year I spent most of my time learning the previous processes, improving some of those processes that I could implement in a tight timeline and essentially make sure I got the catalog completed. Design upgrades were limited, but I made a solid list for the following year.
Some critical improvements I made in the first year was converting every single product (over 9,000) to paragraph and character styles in InDesign. I knew this would be a timely task to do while working through the general production of the catalog, but it was essential to clean up the book and get it where it needs to be organizationally. I worked over 150 hours between Feb-May outside of the normal 8-5 to get this hefty task completed, and it was a huge relief when all styles had been converted.
The other critical improvement I implemented was the Dealer Price List. The price list for the 2019-2020 catalog consisted of over 9,200 rows and 7 columns that spanned throughout the 56 page insert. Unfortunately, this information was never properly placed in a chart within InDesign. The original process consisted of pasting this info, formatting the type, and then tabbing nearly every row to have the columns align properly. There was no way I was tabbing 9,200 rows manually, so I sought out a solution. Initially I just placed the spreadsheet information in a table and implemented table styles. However, when changes needed to be made I needed to carefully update specific rows or the entire table, which caused problems with my computer and speed. I then discovered WordsFlow, an InDesign plugin that links Excel files (and other programs), so that when the Excel spreadsheet file is updated, I can update the InDesign table in a click of a button (and of course a lot of computer updating time). The WordsFlow Pro trial allowed me to also keep the styling of the table following an update, so we now use that moving forward.
With those two (large) improvements now in place, I knew upcoming years would be much more manageable and less time consuming throughout the production months. This would open the door for some new designs and also time for me to continue to design billboards and digital and print ads for LAS.
Catalog year two (2020-2021) was as predicted much more efficiently produced. With a year under my belt, I was able to better gather print vendor estimates, prep and schedule for the upcoming year, meet with stakeholders and hit the ground running during the production months. I still had to work about 50 hours outside of my normal schedule, but felt extremely accomplished to have cut that down to 1/3 of the time. The company was very impressed with my work ethic and production, and I was rewarded by winning the very first Employee of the Quarter for Q1 of 2020.
Catalog year three (2021-2022) production will be coming around the corner shortly, and I am already starting to prepare. My goals this year are to continue to improve processes, better prepare throughout the year to ultimately further cut down the time I have to spend outside my normal hours. One component of catalog that I do receive assistance on is the front cover design. The past two years I have been so limited on time that the Senior Creative Designer pulls together a front cover design. I hope in year three to have the time to design something, as the cover creative is what everyone sees first. The cover is the main creative spot, whereas all of the content is primarily production-based. To be able to design and produce 100% of the 500+ printed piece is certainly the ultimate goal.
At some point I'll show side by sides of the improvements from year to year more in detail. For now, below is the 2020-2021 catalog cover and spread composite.
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