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We all know that smoking is bad for us, and that not only should we quit, we should discourage others — namely kids — from trying cigarettes. To help people avoid or quit smoking, the Tobacco catalog from Calhoun, KY-based NIMCO aims to be the center for prevention and cessation resources, according to its tagline. But is the book's design a breath of fresh air or a stale burned-out approach? Critiquers Sarah Fletcher, creative director of Providence, RI-based Catalog Design Studios, and Glenda Shasho Jones, president of New York-based consultancy Shasho Jones Direct, took a look at the 2007 edition and gave it a thorough workover. Read on to see if the book is a winner, or if it needs to kick some bad creative habits.
SARAH FLETCHER
The four words I would use to describe the Tobacco catalog are, “very loud utter confusion.” It is too much, too loud and too in-your-face to be a pleasant shopping experience. Several serious problems are negatively affecting the catalog. The first is that the 64-page book is titled “Tobacco,” and there are 13 pages of product not related to tobacco.
Then there's the organization by 16 categories, which are too broad and cause confusion. Section names include “Tobacco Cessation,” “Tobacco Prevention,” and “Consequences.”
I'm sure these categories make perfect sense to the company. But to the customer, all three sound the pretty much the same. I fear that customers see a huge array of products that they need to investigate in depth before they can make a purchase decision.
The overly broad category problem is exacerbated by the double exposure of numerous items throughout the catalog — as well as a flawed pagination. For example, there are smoker's lungs models on four different pages, rather than having one page of smoker's lungs where the company could maximize differentiation and upselling.
Similarly, the “Ciggy Butts” life-size cigarette costume appears in three places, there are rubber bracelets on 10 different pages, and a product called “a Drug ID display” is on a page of bracelets in the “Character” section. If you take the time to study the catalog, you start to figure out that there are sections for drug prevention, abstinence, and anti-violence mixed into the catalog as well.
This is a classic example of poorly organizing a catalog. The best way to fix this problem is to start with the customer. My guess is that the vast majority of sales are to schools, companies, and organizations. They are going to be selecting merchandise for a specific customer profile.
The first level of customer organization would be to help the customer identify what problem they are trying to overcome (smoking, abstinence etc.). The catalog does this, but not quick enough. Better product groupings, a table of contents on the back cover, and messaging on the front cover would help.
The second level of organization for the customer would be age. For example, if the customer is an elementary school, it would want to know which items are the most effective tools for discouraging kids from taking the first puff. If the customer is a company, it would be looking for tools to help the beleaguered pariahs standing in the cold by the loading docks puffing away. These are two very different audiences, and the folks trying to help them don't want to look through an entire category of posters to find the one that corresponds to their needs.
The cover — which depicts a cartoon pack of cigarettes holding up signs promoting “no smoking” days and events — is fun. But the dark green background kills most of the graphics. There should also be page references for the items shown to more effectively drive customers inside.
The book's overall design screams — and not in a good way. This catalog sells products that are designed to get attention, and each one is yelling its own message from the rooftops. The designers have tried to sell more products by using callouts that need to shout louder than everything else on the page. Each callout and background adds to the visual cacophony.
The best way to fix this is to take out everything and start over using a hierarchy of importance as the guide. Determine what the most important message on the page is and make it the loudest. Then keep the key messages to three at most.
A good way to make room for headlines and page groupings is to get rid of all of the boxes that surround the products.
These boxes are the tobacco of the design world: Once you start using them, you need more. Suddenly, all the copy and photos need to be reduced to make room for the boxes. Then you need more boxes to differentiate things on the crowded page and — aaaarrrgh! My rule of thumb is that if you need more than one box per page, you have an organization problem that needs to be solved rather than a design problem.
Good pagination requires “highs” and “lows” so that customers have visual markers throughout the catalog. Tobacco has repeated its best selling products throughout the book at the same size. This actually adds more confusion than help.
Giving the best sellers hero status (making the photos large, adding strong headlines and selling them with compelling copy and callouts) would help relieve some of the visual fatigue of this super dense book. The Ciggy Buttz costume, priced at $685, is a great candidate, for example, and would look terrific presented as a half page.
