Delivered with the Tandem agency, by our team through its European experience (Evolution Agency, France).
From the lot sheet to the InDesign catalog, without redoing the layout by hand.
For Giquello et Associés, a Parisian auction house specializing in art and luxury, our team built a pipeline that composes each sale's catalog from a Google Sheet and delivers it as an editable InDesign file. A conversational agent also answers the website's visitors.
26
page layouts composed automatically, in an editable InDesign file
178
pages generated in one run for the September 18, 2026 sale (244 lots)
0
photos downloaded to compose the catalog: dimensions are read on Google Drive
Methodology: the results on this page are qualitative. They come from operating the tools and from the testing done before each launch. We publish client-specific percentages only once they are measured and approved.
Context
Giquello et Associés is a Parisian auction house specializing in art and luxury. Every sale has its catalog: a cover, information pages, more than two hundred lots with photo and caption, the terms of sale.
Production took hours of manual layout work: retrieving briefs, organizing lots, placing photos, managing layouts, all under tight deadlines before each sale. A first version of the tool output a PDF. The starting point:
- A graphic designer who works in InDesign, for whom a PDF is hard to edit
- Only about ten page layouts in the first version
- High-definition photos, close to a gigabyte for a single sale
- Captions with precise rules: font size, leading, spacing between image and text
Challenge
Automate without freezing the result. An auction catalog is proofread, corrected and polished until it goes to print: the file produced must remain the graphic designer's file.
A file that can be picked up
Output a real InDesign document, with named styles and linked photos, that the graphic designer edits like a file she had built herself.
Faithful to the house template
Cover, fonts, margins and captions to the exact value. The values are measured in the graphic designer's InDesign file, never estimated by eye.
Lose nothing along the way
Every lot, every photo and every estimate must reach the catalog, and an entry error must show up before generation, not at the printer.
Solution: a sheet that drives, an engine that composes
A pipeline built and run by our team. The auction house team decides the layout in the sheet, the engine composes, the graphic designer polishes in InDesign.
- 1
A sheet that drives everything
The team enters the lots in a Google Sheet (artist, title, technique, dimensions, estimate, provenance, photo) and picks one layout per page out of 26, grouped into families: single, gallery, full bleed, double page, captions, structure pages. A button sends the sheet to the engine.
- 2
Errors stopped before generation
Before sending, the sheet checks what the engine would reject and gives the row number. An unknown layout name stops the generation and names every affected lot at once, instead of silently producing a plausible page. A cancelled lot is removed before numbering, which closes the gap.
- 3
Photos without downloading them
Photos are found on Google Drive with their dimensions, read from their metadata: none is downloaded to compose the catalog. When a photo reference could match several files, the engine does not pick one at random, it flags it.
- 4
A real InDesign file
The engine writes the InDesign file (IDML) directly, with no Adobe software on the server: cover, information pages, lots, terms of sale, closing pages. Paragraph styles are named and editable, and French typography rules are applied. Fine letter-by-letter kerning remains the graphic designer's work.
- 5
Filed in the right place
The catalog lands in the sale's folder, next to the photos, under a fixed name: InDesign relinks the images on its own. The previous version is archived automatically with its date, and a check report (pages, lots, warnings) is written back into the Sheet.
- 6
An agent for website visitors
In parallel, a conversational agent answers the website's visitors, day and night.
Results
No percentages on this page: we only publish a client rate once it is measured and approved. The results below are observed in operation and during testing.
The September 18, 2026 sale generated in one run: 178 pages, 244 lots
All 26 layouts rendered in a file the graphic designer edits directly in InDesign
A 210-lot catalog composed in a few seconds, with no language model call and no photo download
Entry errors flagged before generation, with the row number, and a check report written into the Sheet
The honest framing: the tool does not replace the graphic designer. It composes the catalog from the team's choices and leaves the finishing work in InDesign to her.
Stack
Your layouts repeat. Your team should not have to redo them every time.
Evaluate your project free with our interactive tools, or book a call: we look at your real documents and tell you what can be composed automatically, and what should stay with your graphic designer.