How we work

  • How our results are selected and ordered

    Designcatalogs is a curated professional library, not an index of everything published.

    Designcatalogs is published by Designstandard AG, the Swiss company behind it. Where you see both names below, the difference is deliberate: the editorial judgement is Designcatalogs', and the commercial relationship a brand enters is with Designstandard AG, the company.

    Brand catalogues, gathered and indexed for people who select and specify products for a living.

    What enters the library

    We decide which brands belong here, and that decision is not for sale. It is an editorial judgement about relevance to practice. We carry brands with no commercial relationship with us, and we have declined brands who wanted one.

    This is where Designcatalogs differs from Designheroes. On Designheroes, new and currently produced products are published only where a brand is editorially qualified and has entered a commercial relationship. Every Designheroes piece on a current product therefore rests on a partnership. Editorial qualification remains a condition: a brand that does not meet it cannot buy its way in. Pieces on historical and discontinued objects are written independently of this. Here there is no such condition. Whether a catalogue is in the library is an editorial decision, and no fee decides it.

    Here there is no such condition. Whether a catalogue is in the library is an editorial decision, and no fee decides it.

    What partnership changes

    Some brands are Designcatalogs partners. Among catalogues that match your search, partner catalogues are ranked higher.

    Partnership also affects how thoroughly a catalogue is covered: how deeply products and images are tagged, and whether catalogue pages link out to the brand's own product pages.

    What it does not change is what we write. Keywords and framing are developed with brand input. The words are ours, and they are held to our editorial standards. We do not present a brand's marketing copy as our own editorial text.

    How search results are ordered

    Our search considers the whole catalogue, not just its title: the products, materials, applications and specifications it actually contains. Partner status affects the order in which matching catalogues appear.

    Brand comments

    Verified brand representatives can comment on the accuracy of their own catalogues — a correction to a specification, a note that a product has been replaced. Those comments come from a verified brand representative rather than from our editorial team, and they are marked that way.

    Anyone can report content they consider illegal, with or without an account: report@designstandard.ch.

    No personalisation

    Results are not ranked according to an individual user's behaviour, profile or search history.

    We do not change the order of results for you personally, and we do not build a profile of you in order to decide what you should be shown.

    If the site does not match this page

    Tell us: info@designstandard.ch. This page describes the standard we hold Designcatalogs to.. If the site behaves differently, we consider that an error and will correct it.

    Last reviewed: 25th August. Reviewed whenever the ranking or selection model changes.