Want your brand to stand out? You’ll need the perfect cover.

So, I was asked to produce a set of covers for a distributor's annual product catalogue in the motorbike industry - well that's an easy win yes? ...Just pop a pic of a guy or girl on a motorbike, looking cool and showing a little bit of rebellious attitude, add the distributor logo and date on the cover like everybody else and we’re good to go - right?

Wrong!.. instead, why not use the space and time you’ve been given as an opportunity to stand out from the crowd, to disrupt the cultural semantics and norms - and why not use just a little bit of humour to hammer home a business message you want to impart…?

At the concept/ideation stage, I always find it is important to always let your thought and creative processes to run wild - as with any good creative work - no idea is, or ever should be off-limits - look at what your peers and competitors are doing - in fact, look at what anybody is doing, regardless of the industry or profession. Think about how you can completely change the set (cliched) narrative and tone to create that all-important cut-through amongst the clutter.

Working in-house or ‘onboard’ in any one industry is often said to lead to stagnation as a creative - the lack of external influence and professional challenges can be said to lead to a kind of ‘tunnel vision’ creatively - you can become ‘institutionalised’ and stop pushing boundaries as you become more aware of what is and what is not acceptable / liked / likely to get signed off by key stakeholders. So, your initial pitch process better excite, inform and entertain to get that all-important 'buy-in' of new and 'out there' ideas.

Another reason why it was good to be working with www.newbe.co.uk on the catalogue project to bounce ideas off.

The Feridax cover executions were a bit of a gamble for a long-established distributor, but they bought into it and the project paid off - hitting 'brand gold' by creating chatter amongst the industry - about what the next one would be - even what garish colour would be used next? Customers were said to be looking forward to what the next witty pun would be.

But in between the fun of finding the correct wit and humour and what the next 'garish' colour would be, there was ALWAYS an underlying business message to the covers - whether advertising the launch of a new website, digital service, product range launch or the customer services expected from the business - this was always paramount in the delivery of the concepts.

Due to an eye-catching and unique choice of special inks and typography - as well as steering well clear of generic and well-worn imagery/iconography - the Catalogues were always warmly welcomed and remembered by the customers, gaining that valuable 'top of mind' space in brand recall and salience - and always stood out on the shelf amongst the many other ‘me too’ distributor catalogues.

And ALWAYS REMEMBER THE SPINE when it comes to distributor catalogues, the spine creates another opportunity to ensure that your catalogue has the best chance of being easily identified on the shelf - this can be an advantage where the catalogues are being used by retailers to show customers what is available (but may not be in stock) - this will be your brand/businesses shop window for the following 12 months...

So to stand out, take cover and don't be spineless. Simple.