B1B2

The Sociology of Business

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Merch Guide

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Book Design

Published weekly and read internationally, The Sociology of Business is Ana Andjelic's newsletter on the meeting point of commerce and culture. Andjelic, a New York-based brand executive and author with a doctorate in sociology, has spent her career at the head of fashion and luxury houses.

Merch Guide, which Ana conceived, wrote and edited, takes a considered view of a category too often treated as an afterthought, placing merchandise within a brand's cultural output rather than its retail calendar.

The Sociology of Business — Merch Guide — Book Design
The Sociology of Business — Merch Guide — Book Design

An opening essay sets out the principles of successful merch: why the one-off drop rarely delivers, and how brands might brief, measure and organise for a lasting programme instead. There follows a catalogue of some 200 objects, each given its own page and presented with the restraint of a technical reference. The book closes with a ranking of 30 brands, assessed on social, cultural, economic and symbolic merit, and a matrix that charts merch by its reach and by the degree to which it surprises.

Source — an online database, queried through an API that returns every record and image URL as JSON.
Script — an ExtendScript running inside InDesign, reading that JSON and fetching the artwork.
Layout — one template page per record, its <<placeholders>> replaced with the record's data.
The Sociology of Business — Merch Guide — Book Design
The Sociology of Business — Merch Guide — Book Design
The Sociology of Business — Merch Guide — Book Design
Front endpapers
The Sociology of Business — Merch Guide — Book Design
Back endpapers

Concept, idea, text and edit
Ana Andjelic

Advisor
Nolan Giles

Graphic design
B1B2

Merch database
Barr Balamuth

Printed by
Šprint

ISBN
979-8-234-17812-1

First edition
Nov 2026