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As for the layout of the catalog pages,
Revgear.com would do well to embrace a more consistent approach. Pick
font styles and colors and stick with them so customers can immediately
recognize the products, the testimonials, the endorsements, and so on.
The
spreads seem to be independent of each other, with no flow, and they
often change dramatically with the turn of a page. One spread may
feature all silhouetted products on white sweeps, while the next may
show the products on screened backgrounds with dividing rule lines and
inset photos.
Building
some consistency between the spreads would invite more customer
involvement as they find it easier to go cover to cover. Developing a
basic page template would be a good place to start.
Other treatments prove to be valuable selling tools. The inset photography highlighting product features and benefits is good.
And
the problem/solution approach used to sell the hand wraps is excellent.
Revgear.com has placed itself in the customers' position, identified a
problem and shown ways to solve the problem. There's no stronger
approach to marketing than that.
Overall,
the Revgear.com catalog has some inconsistencies that don't facilitate
an easy shopping experience, but most of these issues are easily
corrected. Imbedded within the pages, the product, and the brand lies
great energy and excitement. The key is harnessing that energy and
delivering it to the customer in a way that makes sense and makes their
catalog experience an exhilarating one.
Sam Allen and Mark Rockwood
The
Revgear.com catalog represents many of the aspirations and problems of
niche market mail order books. With a client demographic ranging from
martial arts novices and their families to world class fighting
champions of every description, Revgear.com must offer simple access to
both high-end gear at a pro level and information to help the
inexperienced find the appropriate product choice. On this count alone
Revgear.com scores more successes than defeats.
On
the successes side of the scorecard, the catalog presents an appealing
action cover, which shows the support of the stars of the various
sports it supplies. Its tone is more of a magazine than a catalog,
which has some additional appeal for practitioners.
On
the negative side, the busy background and overload of
exclamation-drenched text left us wandering the cover and missing
critical information such as contact numbers and addresses. The larger
concept of presenting an action introduction is a good one, but could
be more effective with less of an information overload.
The
majority of the products spreads in the catalog are well designed,
accessible, and easily one of the best features of the book. The same
cannot be said for the opening spread. Beginning inside the front
cover, company story, president's statement, product guarantee, and
sponsorship announcements fight one another for attention.
Multiple
pictures of the president dilute the impact of showing him supported by
luminaries of various martial arts disciplines. We would merge the
president's statement with the company's story, eliminating one large
somewhat redundant block of copy. Also, we would choose one photo of
the three for this valuable entry page, leaving additional space to
display more effectively the substantial guarantee or a product offer.
The
following page highlights Revgear.com's effective pictorial product
table of contents. We tested its functionality by having staff members
search for specific products in the book. In every case, the products
were found more quickly than through a random search of pages. We did
encounter some confusion about different locations for what seemed like
the same product lines. Gloves and headgear of different types proved
the most confusing.
The
opening spread overall is an uncomfortable and poorly integrated
combination of the dense, copy-block-heavy left page and the open, airy
more graphical right. The spread would benefit from more design
integration, simplification, and use of valuable opening spread real
estate. Again, how about offering a popular product or two, creating
some desire to own some of this very cool gear!
Once
past the open, the book presents products well in simple open page
layouts that are easy to navigate. Product density is low enough to
allow photos to be large and uncrowded throughout the book. This also
allows descriptive copy and inset photos to be easily connected to the
products they support. Each page also contains an informational color
band describing the product category and making critical ordering
information available on every page without clutter.
And
the use of child models in connection with products also available in
child sizes keeps the buyer for being forced to read every gray info
block to look for kid sizes.
But good design is not enough on the equipment packages spread. The
layout of the offering is clear and effective with product lines well
described in the text accompanying each photo. But the photos
themselves are a mystery.
The
group product shots were clearly done for another layout and don't
really fit into the space allotted for them. Some of the photos have
been cropped so heavily to make them conform that they offer almost no
visual information.
In
fact, Revgear.com faces being knocked out due to the inconsistency of
its photography. As in many modestly budgeted catalogs, a mix of photo
sources — from free high quality vendor images to much lower quality
hired product shots — frequently means some products are beautifully
illustrated while others are a puzzle.
For
example, on the page 2-3 spread, the leather bag glove on page 2 is a
well-lit black object. The angle at which the product is viewed and the
intelligent placement of highlights describe the glove perfectly.
In
comparison, on page 3 the elite leather boxing gloves — which sell for
twice the price — are almost featureless blobs requiring a second inset
photo to show what the product looks like. The problem occurs again and
again throughout the book, from the off figure clothing shots to the
product demonstration model shots.
Very
well-executed photos are shown on the same page or spread with much
lower quality shots. As costly as good photography is, a product that
cannot be seen cannot be sold. And a bad quality photo implies things
about a product that are almost never true.
On
the whole, we would score Revgear.com's catalog a seven-rounds-to-three
winner in the competition for effective presentation of a highly
specialized product line. Despite what seems like many criticisms of
the Revgear.com catalog, its problems stood out because so many other
aspects of the piece were exactly right.
