Sombrio Catalogue

Sombrio is an apparel company that specializes in mountain biking. In 2020, I created the company’s yearly catalogue, which focused on the theme of exploring ‘shred’ from the perspective of a biker. A key element of this project was a photo shoot that provided the primary assets for the catalogue. During this photo shoot, I filmed–and later edited–a collection preview video used in sales conferences and on social media.

Develop and execute a yearly catalogue that visually showcases the theme of mountain biking from a rider's perspective.

This catalogue needed to tell an impactful visual story that was both unique and recognizable. To achieve these goals, I conducted internal and industry research. 

Internally, I started by looking at past catalogues I was not involved in, to see what had and had not succeeded with the company’s target audiences. From there I conducted a closer review of the past catalogues, marking down elements that were high quality and elements that would need to be improved in this iteration. 

With the internal review complete, I researched the company’s competitors and analyzed their catalogues and marketing materials. I used these to understand the industry trends and to determine how the Sombrio catalogue could stand out.

The research phase of this project gave me the foundation for how this catalogue would be designed, so the primary goal of this phase was to lay out how the visual story would be told.

I created a type of storyboard that allowed me to flesh out how to balance the featured rider’s story with the secondary story of the new apparel. The result of this process was a balanced visual experience that I was extremely happy with.

This was one of the company’s largest print design projects of the year. Because of this, the management and leadership teams were heavily involved. Having this many voices on one project can hinder deadlines, so I focused on ensuring there is strong communication between all stakeholders–-this has always benefited my projects. 

I was also faced with the unique challenge of working with a team that created everything manually rather than in the streamlined method of Data Merging, which is the industry standard that I prefer. Once again, communication was key and we worked together very successfully.

Every stakeholder involved was thoroughly impressed and found that the feature rider’s story was perfectly balanced with the apparel highlights. 

The success of this project lead me to create a template version so that the company could continue to produce high-quality seasonal catalogues. 

This is one of my favourite projects I have had the opportunity to be a part of and I’m thrilled with how it turned out.