Creative: Do’s and Don’ts for Great Catalog Creative

Don’t get caught up in the little stuff. Decisions such as whether you should use red or blue type on your cover, or typeface sizes, all come under Fletcher’s definition of small stuff. “Leave those decisions to your graphic designers who know best,” she says.

Which leads to her next beef: marketing and other personnel who think they know design better than designers. “A graphic designer would never tell a marketing person, ‘That sales curve is just not good enough,’ but marketing managers tell designers all the time how to design. It’s a little crazy, actually.”