Dowel Furniture’s Successful Saddle-Stitched Catalog

Catalogs and booklets are a staple in NYC promotion, which showcases talent and flair through the pages of playbills, lookbooks, and gallery edition catalogs. The beauty of being the premier printing service in NYC is that we get to share all of the acclaimed arts this city produces. From photographers and gallery promoters to furniture and food artisans — and beyond — Bestype gets the excellence of your work out into the world.

The art of the printed catalog has slowly made a return in many product and service-based businesses. Harvard Business shared that print catalogs can increase sales by 15% – even more telling, this small uptick in customer action has been shown to yield up to a 600% return on investment. These are numbers worth paying attention to if you have a product or design line. 

Welcome to the fifth article in a seven-part series that highlights some of Bestype’s most exciting print projects. Today we’re highlighting NYC-based Dowel Furniture, a stunning marriage of art and function, and exploring their successful collaboration with Bestype.

What is Saddle-Stitch Binding? 

If you have ever held a magazine in your hands, you’ve experienced saddle-stitch binding. In its form, folded print pages are placed on a metal frame, and staples are inserted discreetly to hold the booklet or magazine together. The metal framing is called a saddle, and it creates the stitch. Within these basic principles, however, there is a world of print possibilities. 

With saddle stitch binding, you can personalize the type of cover, paper, matte, type of printing, thickness of paper, size of catalog, and so much more. It is a versatile format that can be utilized inexpensively or leveraged to create a high-end piece.

Saddle-stitching’s low cost and flexibility also grant it another perk — a fast turnaround time. This makes it great for short production runs, not to mention NYC artists’ and marketers’ famously tight deadlines. It is impressive for highlighting artwork since it can span two pages without a distracting binding fold. Coupled with Bestype’s expertise in indigo digital printing, your vision becomes a hand-held collection of beauty.

The Benefits of Printing a Saddle-Stitch Catalog

In addition to their elegance, saddle stitch catalogs carry long-term value for your artwork, collections, or designer lines. Printed catalogs have a way of legitimizing and increasing brand quality, reputation, and reach. It also tacitly communicates your business’s expectation for excellence to new client bases. 

Direct mail opportunities, as we mentioned earlier, have a demonstrated impact on ROI – and let’s be honest, people rarely only open a catalog to one page and stop. They flip. They observe and walk into your world. Now you can offer them a peek at your whole line in one place with ease. Many printed booklets communicate a customer’s experience through a print catalog; some even answer questions to shorten the distance between inspiration and action. There are many formats for sharing your vision.

Bestype & Dowel Furniture’s Successful Saddle-Stitched Catalog

Featured by Elle Decor, Departures, Veranda, and more, Dowel Furniture partners with award-winning designers to create fine furniture that is both luxurious and timeless. Each customizable piece is crafted in a family-owned factory in the Philippines. Choose your preference in fabric, finishes, and sizes to fit your personal decor and space.

Dowel Furniture approached Bestype to create a gorgeous saddle-stitched catalog for their hospitality line. We designed a piece that spoke directly to the hallmark of Dowel Furniture’s craftsmanship and quality. 

One of the aspects we maximized in this print catalog was a tight saddle-stitch binding for seamless premium image display on both the front and back cover. If you look closely at the catalog, you can see the artistic folding, which makes the stapling of the saddle-stitch almost invisible, bringing all the attention to the form and beauty of Dowel’s furniture. 

It allowed the stunning photo cover to pop, spotlighting the swooping, elegant lines and rich fabric of a stately chair standing alongside a regal desk with a stylized hint of red-tinged books to draw the eye to the center. The tone is at once royally elegant and intimately inviting. The back cover subtly presents an exquisitely crafted end table and a simple, clear vase with sparse yet bold dried flowers against a muted backdrop, beckoning you into the rich world of hospitality. Each page of the printed booklet features full photos of elegance and craft. 

Dowel Furniture’s printed catalog married saddle-stitch binding with indigo digital printing in the following specifications:

• 7″ x 9” (14″ x 9″ flat) catalog
• 8 pages (2 sheets) + cover
• 4/4 indigo (2-sided)
• Cover: 100# cover uncoated
• Interior: 100# text uncoated

Dowel Furniture was successful in promoting furniture sales in NYC through this project — an achievement that Bestype is proud to be a part of by spreading more personalized artisanry with this family-owned line.

Contact Bestype

Reach out to Bestype for a free quote on your next print catalog or indigo printing project. For our upcoming article, we will focus on a spiral-bound book printing project we created for the brand Evereden.