Ebel Catalog
Catalog Design & Layout
With over 400 dealers and 22 years of experience, Ebel Inc. is one of the largest and most respected outdoor furniture companies in the country. Each year they release a comprehensive catalog to display their 16 collections with an inventory of over 400 items. They partnered with Station Four to create a catalog that was both informational and stylish.
Setting the Mood
Laying out a 200+ page print piece requires careful organization and planning, but everything begins with concept. To help us find a cohesive design approach, we started with some mood board exploration to define the visual tone of the book. This included some color and font suggestions, as well as overall messaging notes, such as placing a focus on materials and the tactile quality of the furniture. These visuals, while abstract, helped us agree upon a direction with the client before design had even begun.
Translating to Layout
The overall concept of this project was to make it feel less like a catalog and more like an editorial magazine. Too often catalog design gets bogged down by a surplus of information, which compromises elegant design for function. This piece is intended to be both beautiful and educational, featuring picturesque layouts, tasteful use of white space, and helpful descriptions at every turn.
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Flexibility is Key
One of the biggest challenges of any catalog is designing a layout that could accommodate both large and small collections. Any given spread could contain anywhere between six and twenty pieces of furniture, so the layout needed to bend with those numbers. Each piece of furniture also had its own set of measurements, features, and exceptions, so automation was not an option. All 400+ furniture items were lovingly laid out and typeset to sit comfortably in the space, making the normally boring and overwhelming inventory pages just as aesthetically pleasing as the rest of the catalog.
