Mail-order catalog

The pattern

This still is filed under Mail-order catalog.

Define

A catalog that is the store: browse, choose, order, without a clerk and often without a website.

Mechanism

Assortment as argument. Density, numbering, and an order path do the closing. The book is the funnel.

Verdict

We have a range, remote buyers, and a way to take the order on the same object.

Why it works

The column works like a shelf: every title is drawn in its own display lettering, so the eye reads a row of distinct books rather than a block of text. Each entry adds a one-line description and a price with postage, which lets a reader far from the shop choose and order without a visit. Running from pocket dictionaries to books on Egyptian civilisation, the range itself says this press can serve any reader in the house.

The big idea

One press lays out its whole shelf in one column, from a pocket Arabic-English dictionary to Le Bon on Egyptian civilisation, each with price and postage to order by.

The offer

Pocket Arabic-English dictionary at 35 piastres plus 3 post, the Modern dictionary at 100 plus 5, other titles at 10 to 25 piastres plus post, from any bookshop or al-Matba'a al-Asriya, 5 Elwi Street, Cairo.

The proof

Named authors including Elias Antoun Elias, Gustave Le Bon, Anatole France and Nicola Haddad, a doctor as author of one title, and the sociology book called the only one on its subject in Arabic.

Lines from the ad

قاموس الجيب عربي وانكليزي

The pocket dictionary, Arabic and English

فاذا كنت تهتم بتاريخ بلادك فاقرأ هذا الكتاب الثمين في موضوعه

If you care about your country's history, read this book, the finest on its subject

تطلب هذه الكتب القيمة من كل المكاتب أو من المطبعة العصرية

These fine books can be ordered from every bookshop or from al-Matba'a al-Asriya

Steal this when

Advertising a catalogue of many items in a narrow space, where each product needs its own visual weight and a clear price to order from.