---
title: "How a catalogue page is planned"
url: https://catalog-news.com/how-a-catalogue-page-is-planned/
description: "Column grids, gutters and item density, and how the count per page drives the writing."
published: 2026-08-13
updated: 2026-08-13
author: "Catalog News"
---

# How a catalogue page is planned

By Catalog News · Published 2026-08-13

Craft

Before a single description is written, someone has decided how many things will fit on the page. That decision governs almost everything that follows.

A six-column grid. Item blocks span two or three columns; the gutter is held constant so rules stay in the same places from spread to spread.

Catalogue planning runs backwards from a number. Someone decides that a section will carry, say, twenty-four items across four pages, and that decision fixes the block size, which fixes the picture size, which fixes how many words a description can hold. Writers who join the process late sometimes think the word count is an arbitrary constraint. It is the arithmetic of the page arriving in another form.

## The grid is a promise about repetition

A catalogue grid is usually finer than an editorial one, because a catalogue must accommodate several block widths without redrawing the page. Six or twelve columns are common choices for the simple reason that they divide well: a six-column page yields halves, thirds and sixths, so a large item, a medium item and a small one can share a row without the gutters drifting.

Holding the gutter constant matters more than choosing a fashionable column count. The gutter is where the vertical rules live, and if it changes width between spreads the reader's eye loses the alignment it has been trained on. A catalogue whose rules move is tiring in a way readers rarely articulate.

## Rows before columns

Although the grid is described in columns, catalogue pages are usually assembled in rows. A row is a set of items compared against each other; the horizontal rule beneath it says that the comparison has ended. Assembling by row keeps related things adjacent and prevents the common fault of a page where the second column continues the first column's family halfway down, so that two related items never appear at the same height.

## The running head does real work

Because the reader enters at random, every page has to answer where it is. A running head carrying the section name and the page number is not decoration; it is the only navigation aid available once the index is closed. Sections that change subject mid-spread without changing the running head produce the specific frustration of a reader who is sure they have turned back too far.

## Leaving room for the exception

Every range contains one item that will not behave: the thing that needs a diagram, or three extra sizes, or a warning. A grid planned so tightly that the exception cannot be accommodated forces it onto its own page, where it looks more important than it is. Experienced planners keep one double-width slot per spread in reserve, and lose nothing when it goes unused, because a slightly larger block reads as emphasis rather than as an error.

## Testing the plan

- Set the longest real description in the smallest block and check it does not overrun.
- Set the shortest in the largest block and check the block does not look empty.
- Print one spread at final size and read it at arm's length, which is how it will be used.
- Check that the specification lines of adjacent items sit within a line of each other.
- Confirm every rule on the spread lands on a grid position, not near one.

None of this requires unusual skill. It requires doing the arithmetic before the writing rather than after it, which is the part most often skipped.