A firm commissioning a catalogue in Konya sets the product table before the pages. Name, size, and image stay on one row.
A firm commissioning a catalogue in Konya sets the product table before the pages. Name, size, and image stay on one row.
A manufacturer in Konya who wants a catalogue asks how the product table is set up before any page is drawn. The name, the size, and the image file stay on the same row.
A catalogue is a sequence of pages on which a product is read in order. The cover is not a separate emblem exercise. It carries the series name locked in the table, and that name does not contradict the name on the product page. A reader looking for one product should meet the same order on every page: name, then measurement, then a short note, then the image. That order is written at the start. After the sample page is approved, the order stays. If it must change, the table changes first and the pages flow again from that table.
This text does not give a price range, a print quantity, or a promise of higher sales. Photography is a separate job. Paper choice and print quantity belong to the printer. Design delivery is the page file seated on the locked table, plus a short print note. The first check in services, on the catalogue design page, is to lock the table before layout begins.
One row is one sellable record. A row holds at least four fields: the product name, the firm’s own code if it uses one, a single measurement sentence, and the image file name. A short material or use note can be a fifth field. If there is no note, the column is not left blank. The column is removed from the table. An empty column looks like a hole to be filled during layout, and the page then closes with a sentence nobody supplied.
The measurement is written in one unit. One row does not carry millimetres while the next carries centimetres. The unit is chosen once at the top of the table. If width, depth, and height are all present, their order is fixed too. The words approximate, standard, or various do not stand in for a measurement. If the measurement is unknown, the row does not go on the page. The row waits in the table. A blank measurement line is not left on the page.
Every variant that changes the image or the measurement under the same name is its own row. Two colors that are two files are not merged into one row. If one image does not show both colors, the second color is a second row. A product with no variant does not get a color column. Color is a field only when it separates rows. A color name is not written as decoration.
The image file name matches the code on the row. Names such as final, son2, or new do not enter the table. The file name can be read without asking which row it belongs to. If there is no image, that row does not hold a box in the grid. A placeholder icon, a stock silhouette, or another product’s photograph is not inserted. A wrong image breaks the page as surely as a wrong measurement.
Price becomes a column only when the firm has written it in the table. Design does not invent a price, does not treat an old list as current, and does not add a campaign rate. If there is no price column, there is no price spot on the page. A reader does not infer a discount from an empty box.
A worked row reads like this. Name: table lamp. Code: ML-14. Measurement: height 420 mm. File: ML-14.jpg. If a black body is a separate image, the second row is written as ML-14-S. These rows are not presented as a firm’s job. They are built to show how a table is read. In a real job the name, the code, and the measurement come from the firm.
The GS1 Global Data Model defines a consistent set of product attributes so trading partners describe one product the same way. A catalogue table is not an implementation of that standard, and it does not set up a barcode network. The design lesson is the same discipline: an attribute name is chosen once, every row fills that name, and the page places the row without breaking it.
The article Maintain Consistency and Adhere to Standards says users should not have to wonder whether different words mean the same thing. In a catalogue, that is the failure of letting measurement and size, or code and stock number, live side by side in one series. One term is chosen. The contents, the cover, and the product page use that term. A second synonym looks to the reader like a second product class.
The grid carries the column order of the table onto the page. The name sits on the same alignment in every card. The measurement sits under the name in every card. The image sits in the same frame ratio in every card. If the image starts on the left on one page and on the right on the next, the reader thinks a new family has begun. If a family really does change, the break is a section heading. The inside of the card stays put.
The sample page is the contract of the series. Three or four rows are enough. The aim is not a showy composition. The aim is to see whether the locked fields fit inside the card. If a name is long, the card is built for that name. The name is not cut. A product with a short name stays in the same card size. The type size is not inflated to fill a gap. A gap should not be the place where a missing field hides.
After the sample is approved, the remaining pages flow with the same card. A new product enters as a row in the table. The card is not reinvented. When the row count grows, the contents and the page numbers update. An ornament that steps outside the approved card opens a second system. A second system makes the reader search for the same field in two places.
The approval note locks the column list, the measurement unit, the card order, the cover name, and the file-naming rule. The remaining pages do not start until that list is written. Approval is not a sentence that says the page was liked. It says which field will not change again. If a field must change, the approval note changes too, and the sample page is looked at again.
The next round corrects a typing error. It does not add a new ornament. Spelling and measurements are read once more with the people who built the page. The firm checks the measurement against its own source. The page flows what the row says. If the source row is wrong, the page is wrong. The correction therefore starts in the table, not on top of the page. A name shortened by hand on the page contradicts the name that still sits in the table.
Section order lives in the table as well. If products are split into groups, the group name is a property of the row. The group name is not invented later on the page. When a group ends, a new page can open. A card is not pulled from another group to fill a single leftover product. The contents page is the order of those group names. It is not a separate story.
The file viewed on screen and the file sent to print come from the same table. A field visible in one is not deleted from the other. If the type size will be larger on the screen copy, that is one sentence in the print note. A second table is not opened. Two tables mean two catalogues.
The following check is made before the pages are delivered. The list is not a round of taste. If a row is incomplete, delivery waits.
The Ghent Workgroup specifications page describes shared rules developed so PDF files used for advertisements and commercial print can be verified. A catalogue delivery is not a certificate from that group. On the design side the meaning is plain: the print file leaves with the bleed that was discussed and with the locked table. An open question is not left for the press to solve. Paper stock and print quantity sit outside this list. They are the printer’s order.
When the check is finished, delivery is two parts: the page file and a short note. The note records the unit, the bleed, the warning the printer needs, and the rows still open. An open row is a product whose image has not arrived. That product is named in the note. It does not sit on the page as a ghost card.
It does not. If the image file is missing from the row, that product does not hold a place in the grid. The row waits in the table. A made-up box or a stock icon is not used in its place.
They are not. Design delivery is the page file and a short print note. Quantity and paper belong to the printer. The catalogue layout does not choose them.
It is not shortened. A long name sets the card size on the sample page. A shorter name is used only when the firm writes that short name in the table. Design does not cut the name on its own.
Three sources were read on 11 October 2026. The GS1 Global Data Model defines a consistent set of product attributes. Maintain Consistency and Adhere to Standards explains that one concept should not be split across competing words. Ghent Workgroup specifications describes shared verification rules for commercial-print PDF files.
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