Hey everyone, this is a follow up for those who saw my previous post about making a huge furniture catalog.
So I was working on this massive catalog project in Figma when my manager wanted me to switch programs. Originally I wanted to stick with Illustrator since that’s what I know best and I’m not familiar with InDesign at all. I was worried about the learning curve and tight deadline.
Lots of people here told me I should really use InDesign for this type of work instead of Illustrator. At first I was hesitant because of time constraints, but after reading all the feedback I decided to give it a shot.
Here’s what I ended up doing - I exported all the pages from Figma as images and made a quick PDF version with lower quality. I showed this to my boss and explained I needed time to rebuild it properly in InDesign. Funny thing is he looked at the temp version and said it looked fine as is.
But I’m still rebuilding the whole thing in InDesign anyway, working on it during slower periods at work and sometimes at home. I watched some tutorials and set up a few master page templates that I’m using throughout the project.
Thanks to everyone who pushed me to try InDesign - you were right about it being the better tool for this job. Still learning but making good progress on the rebuild.
Good call pushing through with the rebuild even though your manager was happy with the temp version. I’ve been there - quick solutions look good enough, but doing it right always pays off later. InDesign’s perfect for catalogs since it handles text flow and auto page numbering so well. Learning it during downtime shows great initiative. Here’s what helped me most during the transition: set up your paragraph and character styles right away. It’ll save you tons of time when you’re dealing with hundreds of pages and need everything consistent. The learning curve feels brutal at first but clicks pretty fast once you get going.
thats super cool you gave it a shot! indesign is really a game changer for stuff like this. once you get used to it, those master pages will def save loads of time for updates! your boss may not see it now, but trust me, ur future self will appreciate the effort.
Smart move sticking with the InDesign rebuild even after your boss okayed the quick fix. I did something similar with a tech manual - management was happy with the basic layout, but I knew doing it right would save tons of time later. Learning InDesign’s master pages and styles is worth it. When you need to make changes across the whole thing or reuse content, you’ll be glad you did. Your catalog will look way more professional and be easier to maintain. Plus you’ve got a solid skill now for other projects.