Cavicchio Greenhouses
Catalog Series
Cavicchio's is one of the largest growers in New England. Their primary market is other nurseries and landscape suppliers, though they also sell directly to the public. I worked with Cavicchio Greenhouses and St. Pierre Marketing for several years, producing an annual series of catalogs highlighting their product lines.
Each year we would create four catalogs, while most years there would also be inserts, supplements or mini-catalogs. The final catalog, which would go on press in December, was distributed at the Boston Flower Show each year.
The catalogs featured beautiful images of the plants. The Finished Perennials Catalog also included supplementary material, such as lists of plants suitable for specific growing conditions, hardiness charts, bloom heights and seasons, etc. I still use one when planning new flower beds or going to the local nursery, because it shows what the plants will look like in bloom and includes information about plant heights and bloom dates that help with planning beds that look lively all season.
Creating these catalogs was a team effort. There were usually at least two people at Cavicchio’s who would write the product information for the next season, research the latest award-winning plants or new landscaping supplies, and pull together most of the supplementary information that made these catalogs so useful. I did the typesetting and worked with a speciality stock photography company to insert placeholder images for the photography they would be providing, as well as using in-house photography. St. Pierre Marketing handled budgeting, coordinated all the people involved and provided design direction. But no matter how good we were, it always seemed there were last minute changes, usually because of changes in supply.
Eventually the series became too expensive to continue. Cavicchio’s still creates a few catalogs, but produces them in-house and distributes them as pdf documents through their website.
They’re interesting to look at; I can still see the basic templates I worked out with St. Pierre Marketing years ago, but the design has degraded over the years and the proofreading isn’t as good. It really made a difference having all those people collaborating, but it’s certainly less expensive to produce them this way.