Catalogs are business publications that introduce both products or services and the company itself. Catalogs’ main function is to promote and, in order to do so they need tools such as prices magnification, pictures of the products and a tidy chaos, i.e. a mass of products keeping certain order so that they invade the recipient without suffocating him.

Catalogs are divided into three parts: the cover, the content and the back page. The cover needs to be a bait to fish readers. It has to be expressive but never overloaded, because it may frighten readers off instead of attracting them. On the cover you can place a group of products or services, or advertised specials. This way you will be able to draw people’s attention.

Content is what can be found between the cover and the back page. It needs to be full of products and it should not distract readers with too much information placed on them just their price, name, code and basic technical information. Brochures’ contents should act as a supermarket gondola; there should not be any empty space between products or services. The special feature of this kind of ad element is that if you pay less attention to the esthetic beauty of it, you aim at efficient information and promotion of services and products.

The back page can be an undifferentiated continuation of the content or a special part of the brochure where the company or the advertised specials mentioned in the content are briefly introduced. Here all contact information is usually placed company’s telephone, address, Web site and location.

It is advisable to use a code for each product, thus making it easier for consumers when shopping by phone. The products’ codes prevent mistakes and waste of time when shopping both via telephone or the Internet.

Catalogs are complementary ad elements and should be considered as such. There is no point in investing lots of money when producing a catalog, although investing little money is not advisable either, as it may not turn out as you wanted it to. Catalog paper should not be expensive as, unlike brochures, catalogs are printed in huge quantities and readers tend to throw them away after browsing through them.