Brochures provide a great deal of information in a small space. Like flyers, they're easy to distribute either through the mail or at designated locations. However, it's possible to include more pertinent information on a brochure with all of its different folded panels. When designing a brochure, it's important to make sure that all of the relevant information makes its way onto the document without it becoming overcrowded. The amount of folds and panels that your brochure has is as much a design consideration as the content of the copy and photographs.
Instructions
Instructions
1. Decide on the copy (written text) that you want to appear in your brochure. The copy doesn't need to be composed essay style or even using full sentences throughout. Fragmented bullet points allow you to present more information within the given space without sacrificing content.
2. Select the style of brochure. There are several different folding techniques that can be used in brochure production, each one resulting in a different design style of the brochure's content. The size of the paper being used (letter, 16- by 9-inch, legal) combined with a specific folding style sometimes results in the need for a larger size envelope when mailing.
3. Sketch a rough design of the brochure's layout. Once you've decided on the copy and the folding style, fold a piece of paper (preferably the same size the brochure will be) into the correct pattern. Map out the different locations of the copy and where images will be inserted. It doesn't have to be an exact rendering of what you want for the finished product, but will give you something to work from later.
4. Find images to use within your brochure. Company logos, location maps and staff photographs are all images that sometimes appear in brochures. Select the most appropriate pictures to be included in your brochure.
5. Select the colors and typefaces for the brochure. The type of font that's used and the color the brochures are printed in shouldn't be an arbitrary decision. The most commonly used typefaces are Arial and Helvetica, so it's best to avoid those. Stick to no more than three different fonts that are aligned the same way throughout all of the panels. Choose colors that complement one another as well as the images that will be used.
6. Draft the brochure onto a computer. As you design the separate panels, save them all together within a single PDF or TIFF file for later printing. The content copy of the brochure should be kept under a 12-point size. Keep the fonts and images within a defined margin on each panel.
7. Present a commercial printer with a PDF copy of the brochure or a finished proof. It's often more cost effective to have brochures printed commercially rather than trying to do it all in-house.
