Tips on Creating a College Catalog

by

Brent Durell

Making college catalogs could be a tedious thing to do. It means having to coordinate with many different department heads, requesting for their text and photos, doing or liaising for the design, and working with the printer. You should be able to do this while racing with time because your catalogs need to come out before the opening of the school year, or during the time that prospective students are still out shopping for the college or university that they want to go to. So that means timing is very crucial.

If your catalog printing comes out too late, that will be useless because then your prospective enrollees have already gone to the schools that gave them a good quality catalog first. But with proper organization, good layout, and just enough information, your college catalogs will be something that will be sought after by students. And more often than not, it is the bridge between your prospective enrollees and your school that could result to possible enrollment. So do everything you can to make your booklet attractive and on time. If this is your first time to handle this endeavor this year, maybe the guide below can help you greatly. 1. If you are going to handle the design and layout, find a basic design template that you can use to put the contents together. If you will look into word processing programs like Microsoft Word, you will see that there are many fill-in-the-blank templates that you can use. But if you know trickier design stuff, then maybe you can start from a blank document and work your way up. The design will be entirely dependent on what you know. 2. You have to set a working schedule for your work to be out of the printer and ready for distribution. Since these materials are usually done once every term, you will then have to start putting together the information that you need probably a few terms ahead of time. This will give you time to gather all the things you need from different instructors or department heads. If there are indeed changes when you are nearing the deadline, then at least these are the only things that you will need to work on. 3. For easy data gathering, make a simple template that the instructors can conveniently fill up and submit to you. For your text, you may also want to include testimonies from past students so that new students will be encouraged to enroll. 4. Organize all your copy and photos as you send them to the printer. Give them specific instructions. Write them all down if possible so that everything is clear. 5. Make sure that you proofread the final copy before printing so that it is devoid of errors. You are allowed to make last-minute corrections with the printer. This is better than having to recall an entire batch of printed materials because of erroneous entries. 6. Send out your catalogs to high schools months before the school year ends so that their students can study the courses you are offering in your college or university. Producing your catalogs on time or before the deadline will allow your potential students to study your school’s offerings and to register for the required classes. But bungling up on catalog printing because of poor time management is a recipe for disaster for your school. That will mean loss of income and will probably cost your job because of inefficiency.

Brent Durell writes articles about advertising and marketing strategies such as using

catalogs

. More information on

catalog printing

.

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