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Stationery catalogue design: 10 looks for school and office

· 6 min read

A good stationery catalogue design puts a code and the pack facts under every item, so schools and offices can order by message. Choose the design by who orders, then check that every code still prints.

"30 × LS-104, 5 × LS-101, 2 boxes of LS-103." That is a good order from a school office. Nobody asked you which pad, what size or how many sheets.

A stationery catalogue design gets you orders like that when every item shows a code and its pack facts. A teacher can then order straight from the page. A pretty cover matters less.

We took ten of CatalogLeaf's free stationery designs and filled each with the same eight products. Then we checked what printed and what went missing.

Six finished covers for a sample shop called Larch Street Paper, all titled Desk and school shop: Paper Trail with a notebook photo, Red Pencil Press with a drawn red pencil and envelope, Paper & Purpose with a bound ledger, Paper Atelier with plum notebooks, the Midnight Ink lookbook with a navy title box, and Marginalia with notebooks and a brass ruler

One code and one line per item

Larch Street Paper is our made-up shop. It sells an A5 notebook, a pen set, coloured pencils, a grid notepad, a pen cup, sticky notes, origami paper and a writing set. Each got a code, from LS-101 to LS-108, and one line of facts:

A6 · 5 mm grid · 60 tear-off sheets

For paper, give the size, the ruling and the sheet count. A pen line can be as short as "Set of 4 · 0.5 mm tip". If you sell one pen in three ink colours, give each colour its own code. Selling cheaper by the box? Put it in the line: "$4, or $35 for 10".

Selling coloured pencils, crayons or paints in the US? Look on the box for a line like "Conforms to ASTM D-4236". The US Consumer Product Safety Commission requires one of these statements on art materials. If your supplier printed it, add it to the line.

Pick a stationery catalogue design by who orders

"Codes shown" counts how many of the eight codes print anywhere in the file. For size, we saved each one at Compact, the lightest of the three PDF qualities.

Design What it makes Pages Codes shown Compact PDF
Lilac Notes Price list 1 8 of 8 188 KB
Office Supply Line sheet 2 8 of 8 208 KB
Paper Trail Catalogue 6 8 of 8 439 KB
Paper Atelier Catalogue 7 4 of 8 370 KB
Paper & Purpose Catalogue 12 8 of 8 585 KB
Marginalia Catalogue 14 8 of 8 566 KB
Red Pencil Press Catalogue 14 8 of 8 646 KB
Midnight Ink Lookbook 6 5 of 8 620 KB
Highlighter Brochure 9 5 of 8 451 KB
Back to School Flyer 8 flyers 0 of 8 661 KB

Four designs drop some or all codes. Check those before you send one to a school.

Schools and offices ordering in bulk

Lilac Notes fits all eight items on one A4 page, with a Code column next to the price. It was the smallest file we made.

Office Supply is a line sheet. That is a short price list for shops and offices that buy in bulk. Page 1 holds your terms. Page 2 shows every item in a grid, with its code, price and line.

A bigger range works too. We also tried 40 items. Lilac Notes ran to 4 pages and Office Supply to 6, and every code still printed. Both Compact files stayed under 225 KB.

Two pages for the same eight products. Left: the lilac Lilac Notes price list with a photo, a short line, a code from LS-101 to LS-108 and a price on each row. Right: the second page of the Office Supply line sheet, with eight photos in a grid and a code, price and line under each

The sample terms say "12 pieces per style", "50% advance, balance before dispatch" and "7–10 working days". "Per style" suits clothes, not pens. Write a minimum that fits your stock, like "10 packs per item".

A short catalogue for WhatsApp

Paper Trail made six pages, with your first photo on the cover, so put your clearest one first. Every item showed its code and line.

Paper Atelier has its own art of plum notebooks on the cover. You need no cover photo. It is the warmer, gift-shop look. But only four codes printed. The last four items sit on a page called "The full list", with names and prices but no codes.

Three pages with no product codes: a full-page photo of fountain pens in the Midnight Ink lookbook, a Paper Atelier page called The full list with four items and prices, and an orange Back to School flyer for coloured pencils with a $9 badge

If you use it, double-click that list and type each code after the name. Or put the four items people reorder most at the front.

A longer book for the counter

Red Pencil Press, Marginalia and Paper & Purpose made 12 to 14 pages from eight items. Each item showed up two to four times, in grids, lists and pages of its own.

Red Pencil Press has bold red and blue print-room art. Marginalia is cream and navy, with a brass ruler on the cover. Paper & Purpose has a hand-bound ledger and "PAPER / DESK / SMALL GIFTS" at the top of most pages. Change that line if you sell no gifts.

Three Red Pencil Press pages: a grid page with four items showing only name, code and price, a Product details page where the pack line appears under each item, and a Paper specifications page that still says Lined, grid and plain, Ballpoint, gel and fountain, and Single items or bulk packs

In Red Pencil Press and Marginalia, a grid page holds four items with a code and a price, but no pack line. That line turns up just once per item, on its own page or in "Product details".

Red Pencil Press also has a "Paper specifications" page. Marginalia has the same page, called "Paper particulars". Both still say "Ballpoint, gel and fountain" with your products. Our shop sells no gel pens, so that line was wrong. Edit it, or delete the page.

Fourteen pages suit a printed copy by the till. For WhatsApp, delete a few repeated pages. Then check every code still shows somewhere, since the stock list has none.

Gifts, flyers and a hand-out

Midnight Ink is a dark blue lookbook with big photos. The pens, pencils and notepad each got a full page with no code. That suits gift buyers who ask by name, before Christmas or Teachers' Day.

Back to School makes one square flyer per item, with a big round price badge. Eight items gave eight flyers. Send just one, for the item you most want to move at the start of term.

Highlighter is a landscape brochure in olive and bright yellow, nine pages long. Print it for the front desk of an office you supply. Its last three items sit on a list page without codes, so type them in.

Sample lines to rewrite

These sample lines stay with your products:

  • The About text in Paper Trail, Paper Atelier, Red Pencil Press, Marginalia and Highlighter. It says you "can gift wrap any order". Paper Trail and Highlighter add "Free gift wrap" in a box of its own.
  • The line under your title, such as "Paper, pencils and independent ideas."
  • The "How to order" note on Lilac Notes, which promises to confirm "within a day".
  • The sample contact rows near the end: a placeholder number, email and street.

Make it in CatalogLeaf

  1. Open Lilac Notes, Office Supply, Paper Trail or Red Pencil Press. Then press Use with my photos.
  2. Add a photo of each item, then its name and price. The code goes in Code (optional), and the pack line in the description box. Phone screens hide both boxes until you tap More details.
  3. Go on with Next: choose a design. Type the shop name under Your business name, add a Title and press Create catalog.
  4. Double-click any sample line to rewrite it. Then click PDF and choose Compact for WhatsApp, or HD for print.

Before you send the PDF, search it for your last code. If it is not there, a buyer can't order that item by message.

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