Lookbook design is about showing a collection as a story: the mood, the styling and how the pieces work together. Catalog design is about helping people find and buy specific products: clear photos, names, details and prices on every page. Most brands need a bit of both, and every good one follows the same path: plan the product list, shoot with the layout in mind, design on a grid, then output for print, digital or both.
I designed and art directed the Luxury Bazaar holiday gift catalog in 2023, from the cover and layouts to image retouching and production files. Here's how I approach these projects.
Lookbook or catalog: know which one you're making
People use the words loosely, but the goal changes the design.
A lookbook:
- Sells a feeling and a point of view
- Leads with big, styled images, often on models
- Uses little text
- Works for streetwear and fashion drops, seasonal collections, wholesale buyers and press
A catalog:
- Sells specific items
- Shows each product clearly, often with several angles
- Includes names, details and how to buy
- Works for retail, gifting seasons, wholesale line sheets and high-ticket goods like watches and jewelry
Decide which one you're making before anything else. If it's both, plan for both: a few big mood spreads up front, then organized product pages.
Step 1: Plan the book before the shoot
The biggest mistake I see is shooting first and figuring out the pages later. You end up with great photos that don't fit anywhere and missing shots for key products.
Start with:
- The product list. Every item that has to appear, grouped by category, story or price range.
- The priority. Which products get a full page, which share a page and which are hero items for the cover and openers.
- The page count. For a printed, stapled book, count in fours. Printing For Less's catalog specs explain that the total page count has to be a multiple of four, because each sheet makes four pages, and the covers count.
- A flat plan. A simple grid of thumbnails, one box per page, showing what goes where. It becomes your shot list.
- The text. Product names, details, codes, prices if you're showing them, and how to buy. Collect it early. Late copy is the number one schedule killer.
Step 2: Shoot for the layout
Once the flat plan exists, the shot list writes itself. For each page, you know whether you need a wide lifestyle shot, a tight detail or a clean product image.
What to plan for:
- Consistency. Same lighting, background and angle for product shots, so the pages feel like one book.
- Orientation. Vertical shots for full pages, horizontal for spreads. Shoot both for hero items.
- Room for type. Leave clean space in some frames for headlines and product names.
- Details. Close-ups of texture, hardware, stitching, dials, stones. These sell high-ticket items.
- Lifestyle. On-body or in-context shots for the mood pages.
When I built the photo library for Gopuff, I started with a mood board of three styles: lifestyle with people and product, top-down product scenes and product in real-world settings. That same approach works for a lookbook. Pick your styles before the shoot, and every image will feel like it belongs. For streetwear, it's the same idea I used for Defiant Origins: once the samples were made, I shot them in the studio so the brand had its own imagery from day one.
If you're also selling online, plan the product shots to double as store images. My post on ecommerce product photography covers that side.
Step 3: Design on a grid
A grid is what makes 40 pages feel like one book instead of 40 separate flyers.
- Set your margins and columns first. Then stick to them.
- Create a few page templates. Full-bleed hero, two-up products, four-up grid, detail page, text page. Rotate between them.
- Pace it. Alternate busy pages with calm ones. A spread of one huge image after a dense product page lets the reader breathe.
- Make the cover the best image in the book. It's the one people see first, and often the only one on social.
- Keep the type system tight. One display face, one text face, a consistent style for product names and details.
- Retouch for consistency. Matching color, cleaning dust and reflections, and keeping whites white. For jewelry and watches, this is where a catalog looks luxury or looks cheap.
For Luxury Bazaar I worked in Photoshop and Lightroom for the images and InDesign for the layout and production files. InDesign is built for multi-page documents, which matters once you're past a handful of pages.
Step 4: Print, digital or both
Decide early, because it changes the files.
- Work with your printer from the start. Get their templates and specs for size, bleed, safe area and binding.
- Color. Ask how they want color handled. Printed color never matches a screen exactly.
- Paper and finish. Heavier stock and a good cover finish make a catalog feel premium in the hand.
- Proof. Always get a proof before the full run.
Digital
- PDF lookbook. Easy to email to buyers and press. Keep the file size reasonable so it actually opens on a phone.
- On your website. Turn spreads into a scrolling page with links to each product.
- Social. Break the book into a carousel. Instagram lets you share up to 20 photos and videos in a single post, which is enough for a full mini lookbook.
- Design for the phone. Text that reads fine on a printed spread may be unreadable on a screen. Make digital versions, don't just shrink the print file.
Doing both? Design the print book first, then adapt it. It's easier to break a spread into slides than to build a spread out of slides.
Holiday and seasonal catalogs
Seasonal catalogs are a deadline game. The season doesn't move, so the schedule has to work backward from it.
How I'd plan one:
- Pick the products early. The final list is what everything else waits on.
- Lock the theme. Color story, cover concept and a seasonal headline style, built to work across the catalog, the site and social.
- Shoot or gather images in one batch. Mixing new shots with old product images is fine if you retouch them to match.
- Build the templates, then flow the pages. With templates set, dropping in products goes fast.
- Leave time for corrections and printing. Price and stock changes always come late.
- Plan the rollout. Cover image as a post, product pages as a carousel, gift guides by price or person, and email graphics from the same files.
On the Luxury Bazaar catalog, the goal was simple: showcase the watches and jewelry on sale for the season. I handled it end to end, from the cover through retouching to the production files, so every page came out of one set of decisions.
Common mistakes
- Shooting before planning. You'll miss shots and waste others.
- Too much on every page. Space makes products look more valuable.
- Inconsistent product photos. Different lighting and backgrounds make a catalog feel like a flea market.
- Late copy and prices. Collect them before layout starts.
- Shrinking the print file for Instagram. Rebuild it for the phone.
FAQ
What's the difference between a lookbook and a catalog?
A lookbook sells a mood and a collection with styled, editorial images and little text. A catalog sells specific products with clear photos, details and how to buy.
How many pages should a lookbook have?
As many as the collection needs to tell its story, and no more. For a printed, stapled book, plan the page count in multiples of four.
What software is used to design catalogs?
I use InDesign for multi-page layout and production files, with Photoshop and Lightroom for retouching and color.
Should my lookbook be print or digital?
Digital is easier to share with buyers and on social. Print makes a stronger impression for high-end products, gifting and wholesale. Many brands do both, designing the print version first and adapting it.
When should I start a holiday catalog?
Earlier than you think. The product list, shoot, layout, corrections and printing all have to finish before the season starts, so work backward from your launch date.
Get your lookbook or catalog designed
I design lookbooks and catalogs, and shoot the product and lifestyle photography that fills them, for brands in Philadelphia and anywhere else. Take a look at the brand identity work, or if you're building a new label, start with my guide on how to start a streetwear brand.