the best made catalog
creative direction & design
In 2011, a few years after I started Best Made Company, we sent an email out to existing customers asking if they were interested in a Best Made print catalog. Within 48 hours we had to stop accepting requests: we couldn’t afford to print that many. The catalog quickly grew to an industry touchstone, the jewel of Best Made’s crown, a calling card that took me around the world — Idaho, Alaska, Japan, Scotland, Texas, California, Brazil, Uruguay, Patagonia (x 3), British Columbia, and The Yukon. I went on every single adventure (see below) to personally forge relationships with the locations and our subjects. Our subjects were not paid models, these were some of the best “Best Made” men and women from around the world — cowboys, gauchos, backcountry guides, stuntmen, and a world-famous Argentinian chef — all of them out there living at the enviable intersection of work, play and adventure.
The covers, No. 1 to 23
Click on any image to enlarge
The crew of Best Made Adventure NO.1 (left to right): Ports Bishop (photographer), Ben Lavely (Best Made COO), Nate Bressler (photographer), Paul Claus (legendary Alaskan bush pilot), Peter Buchanan-Smith (Best Made CEO)
CLIENT: Best Made Company
PROJECT: The Best Made Catalog
DATES: 2011-2019
CREDITS: Peter Buchanan-Smith (design and creative direction); Pablo Delcan, Gelsey Maslanka (design); Ports Bishop, Nate Bressler, Christina Holmes, Tetsuya Ito, and Jason Frank Rothenberg (photography).