Tuscan Imports Catalog – J Stephens Design

Tuscan Imports Product Catalog

As one of the premier importers of oversized Italian terracotta pottery in the United States, Tuscan Imports has built a high-profile client list that includes such organizations as MGM Mirage, Disney, Hilton, Whole Foods, Duke University, the Biltmore Estate, and more. In 2016, I was hired by company founder Kirk Laing to fulfill the role of senior designer. One of our early objectives was to refresh the print product catalog. My aim was to build upon the outstanding layout created by my freelance predecessor, Charles Jeffcoat, by improving the product photography and adding newly released products since the catalog's last publication.

While the layout of the previous edition of the catalog was beautiful, the catalog suffered from a reliance on poor product photography. The product images provided during the prior design did not accurately represent the true color of the terracotta pottery. The pottery imagery had an inaccurate green tint due to a lack of oversight in color management during the photography and printing processes. To remedy this problem, we opted to re-photograph the entire product line.

I set up a makeshift photography studio in the company warehouse, where I trained the staff on how to light the product, how to correctly photograph the pottery with a white balance reference to ensure accurate color when printed, how to remove backgrounds in Photoshop, and how to export images for print and web. Together with three other staff members, we professionally photographed and handled image post-production for over 200 product images. This became the foundation of the catalog refresh, which I personally laid out in InDesign.

Old Design / New Design

Additionally, we traveled to the terracotta workshops in the Impruneta region of Italy, where we photographed more imagery for use in the catalog and the company website. Once we had an abundance of updated photography, I began the catalog redesign in Adobe InDesign using a 6x4 grid layout. The updated design resulted in a 36-page catalog with an 8.5" x 11" page layout that was printed by Sheriar Press of Myrtle Beach, SC, the state's leading, award-winning printer. We opted to utilize a five-color process (CMYK + a matte spot overlay for the pottery), which resulted in an elegant catalog showcasing the beautiful color and matte finish of the terracotta in print. This photography is still in use on the Tuscan Imports website, as is this catalog design, at the time of publication of this entry.

Download Full Catalogs
Old Design PDF
New Design PDF