Booksource Catalogs
Overview
Booksource produces three catalogs each year aimed at supporting preschool through grade 12 teachers who are looking to start or refresh the books in their classroom libraries. These catalogs include the main grades P-12 Classroom Library catalog, a curated classroom library catalog for New York City schools, and a catalog highlighting Spanish Classroom Library collections.
Goals
Improve the efficiency of the catalog production process to ultimately create the catalogs faster and easier than ever.
Cut back on printing costs.
Include more photography, customer quotes, and testimonials throughout.
Improve interdepartmental collaboration.
Challenges
Having the time to focus on improving the process and adding additional content while balancing other work.
Not compromising the quality of the catalog or the amount of information that needs to be present when thinking of cutting printing costs.
Making time with other departments to get on the same page with the goals and direction of the catalog as it relates to their processes.
P-12 Classroom Library
Collections Catalog
The P-12 catalog is Booksource’s largest catalog. At around 150+ pages this catalog is the most expansive look at what Booksource has to offer teachers to support their classroom libraries.
NYC Classroom Library
Collections Catalog
The NYC Classroom Library Collections catalog is a much smaller 15 page version of the large P-12 catalog that is curated for Booksource’s largest customer, New York City.
Spanish Language
Collections Catalog
Booksource’s Spanish catalog is a 35 page catalog highlighting what Booksource has to offer bilingual classrooms and Spanish-speaking students for their classroom libraries.
Impact
With the direction of the lead designer, we shortened production time by almost one month by setting up more detailed character and paragraph styles that better fit our needs.
By focusing on more efficiently using space in relation to the established grid, we were able to reduce the page count of the P-12 Classroom Library catalog by 50+ pages while making room for more content than ever before. This page reduction saved us around $21,000 giving us the ability to print 20,000 additional catalogs and use higher quality paper.
By making time to have a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities of other departments in relation to the catalog resulted in a smoother production process than ever before.
Winner of the Graphic Design USA’s 2022 American Inhouse Design Awards in the Catalogs category, and was among the top 10 percent of winners from among 7000+ entries.
