Red Envelope

Red Envelope, Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, Harry and David, New Braunfels Smokehouse, Signals, Pretty Good Goods, VivaTerra, Napastyle, Levenger, Uno Alla Volta, Smith and Hawken: these are a few of the catalogs that have been arriving in my snail-mailbox recently. Plus the clothing ones, that I don’t even look through.

I think some of these catalogs employ agents to go around on trash night and look through everybody’s recycling, so they can send another catalog to those of us who tossed the last one.

I do admit that I like the stuff in some of the big-name yuppie catalogs more than I should. I’ve noticed, though, that a lot of the wine decanters and candle holders and trendy picture frames look the same from catalog to catalog: is there some sort of (meta-)catalog of items for yuppie catalog makers to select from? Or do design trends just propagate that quickly: one year in some rarefied place where the innovation happens, next year in the yuppie catalogs, next year as cheaper look-alikes at Target?

Catalogs are, of course, put together by graphic artists, who in many cases can’t seem to imagine that the readers of the catalog are anything but graphic artists. At least, that’s the way it seemed when I was in the market for office furniture. All the “to-do” lists on the designer whiteboards and such read like “show drawings to Kevin” or “meet with clients.” And many more ways to store your art supplies than the stacks of paper and books that tend to characterize my work environments.