"There are three responses to a piece of design - Yes, No, and WOW!

Wow is the one to aim for."

Do you remember that brochure handed over to you by the real estate agent on your way to the office? Yes! The same brochure which you left in the glove compartment of your car and has been lying there for ages; which is why you probably don’t remember.

Or, maybe you never got that brochure. You get the point, however, right?

With this hypothetical situation, we wanted to let you know the importance of brochure design and why it is crucial for your business to become a brand.

What you need to understand here is that designing a brochure is easy but, what’s tricky is designing a brochure that your customers would keep for longer. The more useful your brochure is, the longer is its life with your recipient, and the higher are the chances for it to be passed on to other potential customers.

So, in order to ensure your brochure design is in place and perfectly aligned with your marketing plan to make it useful for your customers, here are 7 important things you should consider when designing a brochure:

What’s the purpose?

A very common thing with all kinds of graphic design services is the ‘objective’. Having a clear purpose for the design is a must, and the same applies to brochure design.

Who is the brochure intended for? How are you planning to share it with your customers (physically or digitally)? What’s the occasion?

Get as much information about the objective of the brochure so that you can properly choose the design for it. It’s important to note that this design is for communication. Everything you put into the brochure is direct communication with your audience.

Pick the right font

Another common element that requires a lot of attention when planning any kind of graphic design project is the ‘typeface’.

Fonts determine the readability of your text, sets the tone of your brochure, and influences its visual appeal. It is, therefore, strongly recommended to pick the fonts appropriately and try not to go overboard with different styles. Maybe 2-3 different styles would be sufficient for the entire copy of your brochure.

If you are new with typography and typefaces overall, maybe you can check out this blogto understand the font combinations that would work well for your brochure design.

Check the folds

Right then! This one’s the most ignored yet one of the most crucial things to keep in consideration when creating your brochure design.

Not everyone would tell you this but, ask an experienced, professional graphic designer and they would tell you how interestingly important it is to check the folds of your brochure.

The number of folds and the style of folds that you would be giving to your brochure is a very important factor since that would directly align with the font size and style as well as the entire design of your brochure.

For example, a  brochure highlighting product features, or a sequence of steps, would benefit more with a brochure that folds open to reveal each step sequentially.

Ensure high quality

Commonly, a brochure is used in a physical – printed – form to share with the customers. And, that is why it is important to stick with everything high-quality for your brochure design.

Be it the resolution of the images used in the design, the icons/logos, or the font types for the copy. You can’t simply get away with low-quality elements when producing something for print.

The exact specification would certainly vary, however, a typical image and font resolution is recommended to be around 300dpi for any brochure print design. (Don’t even think of using those 72dpi images available online. They won’t work!)

Visual theme

Defining a visual theme for your brochure design helps a lot in making it presentable as well as shareable.

The advantage of sticking with a theme is that you can even come up with several different versions of your brochure with different color schemes. A solid theme sets the tone for the brochure and provides a consistent user experience for readers.

Also, having a visual theme for your design will help you make it stand out from the rest and have its own unique identity. Having a creative brochure design is, anyway, highly recommended to ensure a strong brand identity.

Never forget CTA

Remember the very first point discussed in this list of things to consider for a brochure design?

Yes! The ‘objective’!

Here’s where the purpose of your brochure terminates. You need to put a proper call-to-action that you want your customers to execute through this brochure. And, that is why it is arguably the most important thing to consider and be taken care of when designing a brochure.

If you are planning to share the brochures digitally (via emails, social media posts, etc.) then certainly a CTA placed at an ideal location is highly recommended. However, what many let pass is the fact that a proper CTA is required even when you are sharing your brochures offline; in print form.

What should users do after they see or read it?

Whether it is to go to a certain place for an event or tear off a card and mail it in or call a phone number. Establish what users are supposed to do and encourage that behavior throughout the design.

Review copy

And, finally but, very importantly, go through the entire brochure design template that you have prepared before sending it for printing. After all, there’s nothing more embarrassing – or expensive – than finding a typo or mistake in a brochure design after it is printed.

Ask yourself these questions;

-          Does this design grab attention?

-          Is the messaging clear?

-          Does this design point to the CTA?

-          Is this brochure in line with the brand image and identity?

When you find answers to these questions that match your requirements, consider your brochure design template to be ready for publishing.

To conclude...

Creating a brochure design can be fun and cakewalk but, only when you already have a successful design template in place. If you are doing it for the first time, it can be a little challenging but, certainly not so daunting.

And, with these 7 important points shared in this article, we hope it becomes all the easier for you to design your first company brochure.

If you still are not confident and need professional assistance, simply send us your brochure design requirements at support@graphicszoo.com

We’d be more than happy to help!