Fender Product Catalog

Above is a few select pages from the Fender Guitar Catalog I created.

“You don’t need a client to work. If you want to create something, just do it.” Great advice from James White of Signalnoise. He reminds designers every week on his broadcasts to stay busy creating new work, even if that means working without a client. Be your own client, create something you want to see in your portfolio.

Last month I featured an incredibly well-executed annual report design by Wanken. Having never tried an annual report before and seeing just how much work goes into creating one like Shelby’s, I was inspired to plant my feet into a new design project.

The Subject

I chose Fender Guitars as my subject client because it was a product that I was very familiar with. I’ve been somewhat of a guitar-geek for about 10 years now. In high school I worked in a tiny guitar shop spending most of my time reading through product catalogs, wishing the minimum wage I was collecting would eventually land me my dream axe. That never did happen, but I digress.

Fender has a rich history of creating excellence backed by a lineup of legends in the music world like Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. The company has been around since the breakout of Rock & Roll and Blues. They were the innovators behind the first electric guitar. Known by many names over the years, the modern Fender Telecaster® is synonymous with Rock & Roll and Blues history.

The Direction

When I sat down a started thinking with my sketchpad my final concept was to create somewhat of a throwback to the early days of the Fender brand. Without realizing until much later in the project, subconsciously the design path I was on had some help from a 2006 Pepsi commercial. A child Jimi Hendrix stumbles upon a Pepsi machine and a Coke machine on opposing sides of the street. After considering his option, he chooses a Pepsi and takes his first sip. In that moment notices a Fender Telecaster in the window facing him. He then looks over his shoulder and sees above the Coke machine was an accordion shop. “That was a close one” is the final tagline.

So that was the theme that was running in my head. Something that you could see on the set of Back to the Future when McFly steps out of the Delorean and into 1955.

The above are select pages, the complete catalog will be available in the portfolio eventually.