Does your catalog need a ‘pretty’ prescription? Maybe not.

By Susan McIntyre

There’s a dynamic tension between selling and beauty, and striking the right balance in your catalog.

Pretty in Its Place
A gift cataloger conducted a creative test between “beauty” and “clarity.” Guess what: clarity won.

Both the beauty and clarity catalogs were very good-looking, but the beautiful one focused on drawing attention to the pretty photos and creating ambience and emotional connection — all of which are important. Headlines and captions became secondary, though, and were easily missed by scanning readers. The connection between copy and its image was slow to materialize and not always clear.