The person laying out this catalogue had never designed a book before. She was a student on the course, teaching herself InDesign in the gaps between studio work and a dissertation, and the degree show it had to accompany would open on 5 June whether the files were ready or not. That was the real challenge behind Art Theory and Practice 2026, the A5 degree show catalogue for Manchester School of Art’s BA (Hons) Fine Art and Art History and BA (Hons) Art History and Curating students.
The finished book makes none of that obvious. Mike’s verdict in his notes: “Actually a great example of a degree show catalogue.” He is right: 70 pages of profiles, studio photographs and full bleed artwork, perfect bound with a printed spine. His one reservation is the cover, which we come to below. If your year group is starting from the same blank page, our catalogue printing for graduating art courses is built round deadlines like this one.
A first InDesign file and an opening night that would not move
The organising student first wrote to us in March. The cohort was small, and she was clear about the ambition: they wanted their work “to be taken as seriously as the much larger Fine Art cohort”. She cared most about the cover, asked for design tips, and requested a sample pack so the group could choose paper by touch rather than by guesswork.
We worked backwards from the show. Studio and dissertation deadlines landed in early May, the opening was fixed for 5 June, and the team wanted books in hand a few days before. Harriet suggested 20 May as the latest date for print ready files, and the organiser passed that date straight to the rest of the course as their deadline. Setting it early turned a vague worry into a plan.
The book grew as it went. A spec quoted for 42 inside pages became a request for 74, then settled at 70, with the spine widening as the page count climbed. We requoted each version without fuss and sent two InDesign cover templates, one for each paper still in the running, with the spine width already worked into the centre. Our walkthrough on wrapping cover artwork round a printed spine explains the same set up.
Four fixes ahead of the proof
A draft came over in mid May for a free file check, and Mike found four things worth sorting. First, bleed. The draft was set at the exact A5 trim, 148 x 210mm, with nothing beyond the edge. Full bleed artwork needs an extra 3mm all round, so each page should measure 154 x 216mm, with images and colour blocks running into that margin. Our guide to carrying full bleed images over the edge covers it step by step.
Second, colour mode. The pictures were still RGB, which always shifts a little when it meets CMYK ink on paper, so we walked her through converting and adjusting in Photoshop wherever accuracy mattered. Third, three images were too low in resolution. The quick remedy is to place a picture smaller, since halving its size doubles its effective resolution, but these three had to stay full page, so the organiser sourced better versions instead.
The fourth catch mattered most. Several black and white photographs were saved as colour files that only looked grey on screen, and digital presses can struggle to print those as clean neutral greys. We flagged it with our video on getting monochrome photographs to print cleanly, and the reply came back the same evening: she had “converted all the monochrome film photos into greyscale”, adding, “It’s good to get this advice.” Final PDFs replaced the InDesign files, the proof was approved, and the finished catalogues arrived on 29 May, a week ahead of the opening.
“Thanks for all your help and support throughout, you’ve made this a much easier process for us.”
Student organiser, Art Theory and Practice, Manchester School of Art
Smooth silk inside a heavier uncoated board
The team compared 130gsm silk with 120gsm uncoated for the inside and chose silk. Mike’s verdict on the pairing: a thick cover against silk insides is a nice combination. The 300gsm uncoated cover has weight and a soft, papery character under its matt lamination, while the silk pages hold the deep blacks of a dark collage and the hot pink of another without dulling either. Comparing stocks for your own course? Have a box of printed stocks posted to your studio and decide around a table, as this group did.
Faces between the frames
The layout follows one rule and never breaks it. Each graduate gets a spread: name, course, contact details, a small image and a statement on the left, then a single large piece of work running full bleed on the right. The artwork always gets the bigger half, and the reader always knows where to look.
What gives the catalogue its flow is the photography between those profiles. Grainy black and white shots from the studio, a student in a welding mask, friends round a table, work pinned to the wall, break up the run and put faces in front of the reader. Mike singled this out, and it is the easiest idea here to copy: intersperse your profiles with candid studio pictures and a directory starts to read as a portrait of a year group.
A cover that keeps its voice down
Mike’s note on the outside is honest. The cover typography and styling undersell the quality of the book and the work inside it. Two dark brown block print motifs bleed off the left edge of a cream board, and the title sits small in a light sans serif. It is calm and considered, but quieter than the pages behind it. If you choose an understated cover, plan for it: put your strongest image on the first spread, and let the spine and the inside cover carry your institution’s name with confidence, as this one does.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
Product cataloguesA5, 28 pages, stapled£166for 100