A catalog worth keeping

For a trade show and a year focused on SENKO products, I replaced a 68-page, brand-by-brand catalog with a themed one that starts from the gas — built to be kept and read, not thrown away.

The catalog design's cover and contents pages side by side. The contents list a feature story, a gas encyclopedia in four hazard groups, a buying guide, product pages and appendices. — COVER AND CONTENTS — CATALOG DESIGN

DATE: JAN—FEB 2026
CONTEXT: B2B gas-detection distributor, one-person product team; a new catalog for a trade show, in a year when sales focused on SENKO products
ROLE: Concept · Content structure · Copy · Layout · Visual system
STACK: HTML / CSS laid out at A4 (210 × 297 mm per page) · LLM-assisted drafting with human review

THE 45-SECOND READ

PROBLEM

The company's catalog ran 68 pages, organized by brand and model across everything it sold, from gas detectors to metal-detector gates. With that many products and gases, it never answered the question customers actually bring — which detector for which gas?

DECISION

Make it themed instead of complete — one brand, one subject (process gases) — and organize it the way customers think — the gas first, the product second. Then make it useful enough to keep.

PRODUCT

A catalog design of about 20 pages — a feature story, a gas encyclopedia in four hazard groups, a buying guide, product spreads and a gas × product matrix — plus a VOCs flyer for the same show and MGTP-P product pages in the same visual language.

STATUS

The owner had no objections to the direction, but I left the company before it went to the printer. The MGTP-P pages are live on the company website.

A product catalog picked up at a trade show is easy to throw away. One with real reference value might be kept — and every time it's opened again, it's another chance to sell.
THE CASE I MADE TO THE OWNER

BEFORE → AFTER

68 → 20PAGES

8 → 1BRANDS

4HAZARD GROUPS, BEFORE ANY PRODUCT

Brand count from the old catalog's own list of represented brands.

THE PRACTICE / 01

Themed, not complete

The old catalog tried to show everything the company carried, one model per page, grouped by brand. With that many products and gases it was hard to read, and it never clearly said which detector a reader needed for which gas.

The new year’s sales focus was SENKO, and the catalog’s first job was a trade show. So I narrowed it to one brand and one subject — the gases used in semiconductor and other process plants. Both catalogs below are shown at the same scale.

BEFORE — THE PREVIOUS CATALOG, ALL 68 PAGES. ONE MODEL PER PAGE, GROUPED BY BRAND.

The new catalog design's pages as thumbnails at the same scale, two rows deep — cover, contents, a feature story, gas encyclopedia pages, a buying guide, product spreads, a matrix and a back cover. — AFTER — THE NEW DESIGN AT THE SAME SCALE. TWO ROWS INSTEAD OF SIX.

THE PRACTICE / 02

Worth keeping

So it opens like a magazine. Before a single product appears, a feature story explains the process risks you can’t see.

It was written for the safety, equipment and procurement staff at semiconductor, display and optoelectronics plants, and planned to do double duty — a way for sales to open a conversation, and content that could become topic pages on the website.

Catalog spread, pages 4–5. Left: "看不見的製程風險" (the process risk you cannot see), with three cards on safety, compliance and process quality. Right: "完整監測解決方案", a four-step monitoring overview. — FEATURE STORY — THE RISK COMES BEFORE ANY PRODUCT. PP. 04–05.

THE PRACTICE / 03

Start from the gas

Customers start from “which gas do I need to detect”, so the catalog does too. Every gas gets a card, and the cards are grouped by hazard, not by product line.

Catalog spread, pages 8–9, from the gas encyclopedia. Left: environmental and asphyxiant gases. Right: semiconductor process gases. Each gas is a card with its formula, Chinese and English names, hazard markers and product tags; a dark box at the bottom of the right page recommends a product. — GAS ENCYCLOPEDIA, PP. 08–09. CONCEPT DRAFT; THE PRODUCT TAGS AND THE RECOMMENDATION ARE PLACEHOLDERS, NOT FINAL SPECS.

01One hazard family per page
The encyclopedia is grouped by hazard — flammable, acutely toxic, environmental and asphyxiant, semiconductor process gases — not by product line.
02The formula leads each card
Then the Chinese and English names.
03Hazard markers
Flammable, acutely toxic, corrosive or irritant — readable without the text.
04Which product detects it
The step from "which gas" to "which detector".
05The page closes on a recommendation
Here, the detector for semiconductor process gases.

End on the lookup table

A buying guide maps each job to a recommended product, and the catalog closes with a gas × product matrix — which of the three detectors covers each gas, on one page. The page lists 20 gases and points readers to sales for the full list of 71.

Appendix page with a gas × product table. Rows list gases with their formulas; columns mark which of SI-H100, SI-200 and V-PRO detect each one, plus hazard markers. — APPENDIX — GAS × PRODUCT MATRIX, P. 18. CONCEPT DRAFT; PRODUCT DATA ARE PLACEHOLDERS.

THE PRACTICE / 04

One visual system

The look borrows from technical drawings — thin L-shaped frames, small grids and dot accents on a cream ground, with the brand’s yellow-orange as the only accent color. The layouts are deliberately not symmetric, so the pages don’t feel rigid. Noto Serif TC carries headings and numbers; Noto Sans TC carries the text.

The VOCs flyer made to hand out at the same show uses the same line work, and the MGTP-P product pages use the same palette and frames.

VOCs flyer. "VOCs 偵測專家" (VOC detection specialist) with four black label blocks — PID technology, ppb sensitivity, 500+ VOCs, portable plus fixed — beside the SI-H100 fixed monitor, and the V-PRO in orange and yellow below, over a topographic line pattern. — VOCS FLYER FOR THE TRADE SHOW, JAN 2026 — A4 WITH BLEED

THE PRACTICE / 05

Say only what is certified

The MGTP-P pages answer the ABS 2026 requirement for CO₂ detection on ships. They say “in response to the ABS 2026 requirements”, never “ABS certified”, because the products are not ABS certified; the certifications they do hold are listed per product.

The MGTP-P product page on a phone. "不是更換，是進化。" (not a replacement, an evolution) above a "4 → 5" comparison from four gases to five, over a photo of the orange detector. — MGTP-P PRODUCT PAGE ON A PHONE — FIRST SCREEN

READING NOTE / VISIT

The MGTP-P pages are live.

Both pages are in Traditional Chinese.

↗ MGTP-P ON EVERRIST.COM.TW ↗ MGTP-P ON SAFETYGAS.COM.TW