The New L.L. Bean Fall Men’s Catalog–This is a Stodgy Company?
The new L.L. Bean Fall Men's catalog cover
It is a big big deal for any company in the formulaic catalog business to make a radical change in their book design. With their new Fall Men’s catalog, L.L. Bean has completely upended their conventional (but clearly time tested) model in favor of a fresh, bold, exciting new design. Speaking from squarely in the center of the target demographic, I say bravo. (The online version is here. Free catalog signup is here.)
We were away at camp for the Labor Day weekend with a bunch of friends and there was a copy kicking around. Not everyone loved it, but it achieved one of the critical goals of great design–to get noticed. Amidst all the talk of Barack, Sarah, Bristol and Gustav, we somehow found ourselves debating….a men’s clothing catalog.
The most notable and, I would venture to guess, controversial move is the alteration of the traditional L.L. Bean logo. It looks to be true to the core Bean typeface, but is presented large at the top of the page, in the style of a magazine. Amongst the clutter of our mail, it immediately stood out. Something’s different here. With an evocative road trip photo and a vintage Toyota Land Cruiser (my first car), I was immediately drawn to check it out.
The inside is equally fresh–continuing the road trip theme throughout and using some visually interesting and very useful information graphics to convey color choice and features. The photography is dynamic and it does a nice job overall of maintaining the cross-country story line. The models are hunky and unshaven. In place of the standard issue Golden Retreiver? Yes, a mutt! And, in defiance of the dense layouts typical of mature catalogs, there are lots of full bleed images and several spreads with only two products. Plenty of breathing room.
Interesting, useful information graphics and plenty of white space
Strewn throughout is a series of 1-2-3 How To illustrations –”Predict the Weather”, “Stay Alert on the Road”, “Teach a Dog to Catch a Frisbee.” They are sort of funny, bordering on irreverent perhaps (a bit of a contradiction to the old “Store That Knows the Outdoors” tag) but I confess I read every one.
The first place I heard about the new catalog was on the blog of the revered design firm Pentagram that worked with the company on the redesign. The particular blog post seems to have been taken down sometime last week (this is the original link in case it comes back); in classically arrogant fashion it described how dumb the client was before they got the Pentagram religion. Still, the work is good and it is a statement in and of itself that L.L. Bean would use a purist, high-brow design firm like Pentagram for this assignment.
For Freeporters who keep eye on mother Bean, it is a sign the company isn’t as stodgy as you might think.
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