McMaster-Carr Catalog

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McMaster-Carr Company

McMaster-Carr Company, Elmhurst, IL, 2012, English

Design, General

A large yellow catalogue produced by the McMaster-Carr company (its 118th edition was released in January 2012), which sells mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and hardware products to industrial and commercial facilities; the website boasts over 490,000 products.

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Craig Hodgetts

On Craig Hodgetts’s Book List

Catalogues have a remarkable appeal to me. Perhaps it’s the regimented, absolutely even-handed manner in which the goods are displayed, or the detailed facts that are appended to each entry, including metrics, materials, and applications. McMaster-Carr is a triumph of the form, from its wafer-thin paper to its sturdy binding, which has withstood thousands upon thousands of openings, and its micro-yet-legible typeface.

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