St. Louis Music needed a better catalog to revive its sagging "Alvarez" line of mid-level stringed instruments. Their existing catalog was a hodgepodge of irrelevant text and amateur photographs of unattractive teenagers.

I flew to St. Louis and toured their factory and interviewed the employees. The instruments were all imported from Asia and had to be inspected before being shipped to U.S. customers.

I decided to frame the catalog as a message from one of the luthiers, the men who inspect and adjust the instruments. It makes the text more personal and engaging. "Gerald Chapman" (a fictional composite) explains, step by step, how to select the best guitar, banjo, mandolin, or violin for your particular desire.

The client also wanted a lot of guitar history included, so I researched and found old woodcuts and historical information for sidebars.