The Herff Jones scholastic catalogs are an annual project, and by 2023 it was my sixth consecutive year running it. While we had produced 6 variants in the previous few years, but for school year 2024 we added two more options: condensed versions of the jewelry and senior catalogs. These were intended to give a cheaper option to sales partners who still wanted to include all products, but were okay with redirecting customers online to see full options for each product.
As before, my typical practice was to develop the Senior All-Inclusive Catalog first (since it contained all products), getting most everything approved and finalized, and then splitting its content out into other catalogs that contained various product lines. But since the condensed versions weren't simply trimming out content but rather compressing it, those two catalogs required additional time in layout, as it wasn't simply a question of pagination.
2024 Senior All-Inclusive Catalog
2024 Jewelry Catalog
Normally, the design process for catalogs take about three months from start to finish. Unfortunately, delays in sample production and in turn photography prevented me from beginning in earnest until mid-March, and our press date remained in early May. Thus, I forced to cram about 12 weeks of work into a little over 7 weeks, while creating more catalogs than ever before. It was an extremely stressful period, and resulted in fairly serious post-mortem to avoid such situations in the future.
In terms of design style, the covers and jewelry collections saw the biggest change from the prior year. We moved away from the grainy gradients and instead opted for bold color borders and clear, close-cropped photography. While the color-coding is insignificant to customers, it's very helpful for sales partners when preparing their materials for distribution to students. The color banners at the top of the jewelry collections help tie in that color in a strong way, and also brought models back onto those spreads (they were absent the previous year).
We continued from the previous year our inclusion of dozens of photos taken by high schoolers and used in their Herff Jones yearbooks. We wanted both to showcase their talents (all credited with a byline) and to emphasize the authentic experiences of students across the US. As a corporate split and sale occurred that year, Herff Jones parted ways with its yearbook division, and thus 2024 would be the last year we would be able to include such photography.
We once again made us of gatefold covers for 2024. This necessitated outputting them as separate files for press and accounting for minor changes in page size, but the effect was well worth the effort. This was the last year we opted to go the gatefold route, primarily because we had difficulty justifying the cost in an era of declining print. For similar reasons, the Senior All-Inclusive Catalog was in low demand and not printed that year, although it was available in digital format.
Four of the eight catalogs are viewable in full online at Issuu here:
Senior All-Inclusive Catalog
Jewelry Catalog
Senior Catalog (With Apparel)
Senior Catalog (Without Apparel)
Senior All-Inclusive Catalog
Jewelry Catalog
Senior Catalog (With Apparel)
Senior Catalog (Without Apparel)
Note: The catalogs were for the Class of 2024, but in order to market to that class throughout the school year, they were designed and printed in the first half of 2023.
2024 Senior Catalog (Without Apparel)
2024 Jewelry Condensed Catalog
2024 Regional Jewelry Catalog
2024 Senior Catalog (With Apparel)
2024 Letter Jacket Catalog
2024 Senior Condensed Catalog
