Viking Catalog - Putting It All Together (3,692 words)

The Viking catalog trade in 11 countries last year reached the overwhelming mass of 53,000 pages, 900 mailings and 298 million copies produced.

"In 1999 if you laid our catalog pages end to end, we printed enough to travel to the moon 13 times or around the earth 125 times," says Rex Ciavola, vice president for catalog production at Office Depot/Viking, who oversees this huge operation in eight languages at nine creative-services facilities (two in the United States—one each for Office Depot and Viking, seven abroad in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Japan and Australia). These facilities host a staff of 175 creative, prepress, print production and systems-support individuals. The global team produces buyers' guides and monthly sale and prospect catalogs in every country.