How to Design the Most Effective Brochure
Even in the digital era, printed brochures continue to be an effective marketing tool for businesses. We have already told you how you can reach out to your customers using informative printed brochures. If you are running short on time and want a professional looking brochure, then a printing company can help you. You can find them both online and offline at reasonable prices. If you are keen on learning about how to design a brochure from scratch, then consider the following:
1. Proper Planning and Research
Before you can get your brochure printed the way you want, you need to look at other brochures in your area. Your objective needs to be clear for your brochure to achieve its purpose. When you do thorough research, you will get design ideas. If you know what a brochure is supposed to look like, then you can start work tailoring it to your target demographic and how to best distribute to them. The next step is to choose a typeface suitable for the style of the brochure you want, whether it is a professional, funny or informal. The message of your brochure needs to straightforward if you want your readers to understand the message and not get distracted or confused. It’s better to not use more than two types of font. Just a heading, subheading and body copy font is sufficient.
2. Trial and Error
The best way to organize the essential details of your brochure is to design several draft layouts until you can visualize how you want the information to be spread out. The entire process can be a bit pricey, but there are ways to save money on brochure printing. You should use elements like boxes only for highlighting the most important parts to make it easy for your readers to follow. Asking for a second opinion from a friend is also a good idea to see if your brochure is correctly serving the purpose of delivering the intended message.
3. Minimalist Approach to Design
Avoid the temptation to fill up all the space of the page. Leaving some empty space and opting for a simple layout is actually going to make delivering the message easier. You can use pictures and graphics too, but don’t overdo it. If you try to put too many things into one space, it’ll only make the brochure appear messy.
4. Choice of Colours
There are many colour choices when it comes to brochure printing. However, try to refrain from choosing more than two colours. Keep in mind that adding more colours will automatically increase the printing cost. Of course, if you absolutely have to include many colours to generate your desired outcome then go ahead and go for it.
5. Choice of Paper
Once you are decided on the colours, you need to choose the paper for your brochure. The colour, dimension and material of the paper are equally important to make your brochure look good. The factors that you need to determine when choosing the right paper for your brochure, are:
a. Paper Thickness
170-300 GSM is the ideal thickness for most corporate brochure printing. In case you have a large number of pages, you may need to reduce the GSM a little to make sure that the brochure doesn’t turn out to be too bulky.
b. Paper Finishing
Choosing the finishing of the paper comes after you have decided on the thickness. A coated paper is treated to produce either a matte or a glossy finish. The use of coated paper makes the end-product look expensive, while the unreflective surface of an untreated paper is ideal for everyday printing. For example, the 80# dull or matte text is coated with a fine satin finishing and is an excellent choice to showcase crisp typography in your brochures.
It comes down to what message you want to convey. If you are distributing brochures for a charity to ask for donations, then a coated 250 GSM paper may give the wrong impression. On the other hand, glossy coated paper works best for brochures and gives a luxurious feel which can benefit your marketing if it suits your brand image.
c. Types of coating
There are three types of coating available, aqueous coating, UV coating, and soft-touch coating. For beautiful brochures and catalogue covers, aqueous coating works best. This clear coating is perfect for protecting the printed piece as the glossy surface prevents dirt and fingerprints.
6. Brochure Folds
There are many types of folding styles available, like half fold, tri-fold, Z fold, French fold or 8-fold etc. The classic tri-fold brochure is the most popular and versatile. There’s a blog on our website if you want to know about the type of format that will work best for your brochure.
7. Have a Review Copy
Don’t ignore the value of a great copy. Once printed, fixing any issue will become very difficult. When the design is finished, and the typeface and paper are decided, you need to proofread and review the brochure.
8. Reader’s Perspective
Last but not least, when you are designing a brochure, always remember its main purpose. Whether it’s a brochure intended for posting in response to a request made on the website, or a giveaway at an exhibition, you need to keep in mind the message you want it to convey to the reader. Always keep that in mind during the design process.
A properly designed brochure will work wonders as a marketing tool. Keeping these points in mind, get your brochures printed by a reliable printing company. You will end up with a beautiful product that will effectively serve its intended purpose.
