The Ultimate Guide- Design Develop and Print a Tri-Fold Brochure

“Marketing is a contest for people’s attention.” – Seth Godin

As Seth Godin and other marketing gurus have said, right marketing means getting your business in front of your prospective customers in the most efficient and effective way possible. Is your business accomplishing this?

Today, we’ll talk about how to get your marketing right, particularly in the print arena, and even more specifically via the age-old but always effective ‘tri-fold brochure.’

Although they can be expensive to produce, brochures are a great way to deliver a message to your intended audience. The purpose of a brochure is to educate the customer and to encourage them to get in contact with you. In fact, a well-developed brochure can be designed to be both practical and affordable; they are easily mass produced on a desktop printer, photocopier, or printing press.

Basic Functions of Brochures

Your brochure design will depend on how you intend to use the finished product. Brochures have two basic functions, they are:

• Attracting attention: A brochure that is designed to attract attention should contain a punchy headline, short paragraphs, a reasonable amount of white space, and a call to action.
• Provide information: On the other hand, a simple design and lots of product knowledge are the staples for brochures that provide information.

Benefits of Brochures

The biggest reason that brochures are so popular is because of their fundamental design; they can fold for easy portability and they are the perfect readable size. Other benefits include:

• You are given complete control over every detail including what is said, how it’s said, and how visuals are used.
• You control who gets it and where its placed
• They provide flexibility in cost and design
• If due diligence is performed, even a beginner can create an effective brochure. On the other, utilizing professionals to do this task for you can save time and hassle.

In addition, they can be used for a variety of promotional purposes. For example:

• They are utilized in the tourism industry in order to promote area attractions, hotels, resorts, and more.
• Department stores use them to create tri-fold mailers that include coupons and promote upcoming sales.
• Clubs, agencies, and organizations utilize brochures to educate readers about important public issues and to promote their efforts.

When creating a brochure, it’s important to understand that it should reflect the principles of design to create an attention grabbing and interesting piece of marketing; this is where desktop publishing can be of use.

What is Desktop Publishing?

With just a basic knowledge of the processes involved with desktop publishing, you can bring your vision for your brochure to life. It is a modern printing process that utilizes relatively easy to use design software to create and edit layouts that will help you produce a variety of materials that include:

• Brochures
• Magazines
• Reports
• Flyers
• Newsletters
• Books

Desktop publishing provides your personal computer with ability to utilize the traditional printing presses to create amazing visual pieces. However, this is easier said than done. Before you begin creating your brochure it is important that you understand the importance of using basic design fundamentals like line elements, space, rhythm, balance, texture, and color to your layout in order to create a quality product.

Basic Design Elements and Principles: What You Need To Know

A brochure with a well-designed layout is has an increased chance of carrying out its purpose effectively i.e. attract its target demographic and effectively communicate the creator’s intended message. However, before we delve deeper into this subject, it is important that you get a basic understanding of the different design elements and principles to help you create an effective and eye-catching brochure.

Design Elements

Your design elements can be used individually or in combination with one and other. They include:

• Lines: Lines connect points in order to form a visual image. They can be used to convey an emotion, describe a personally, or create patterns and/or shapes.
• Shapes: Shapes are connecting lines that have dimension (height and weight). The most common shapes are squares, triangles, and circles

Another important design element concerns universal images, and three things that contribute to this facet include:

• Texture: The feel or look of a surface
• Color: Adds dimension to your design and grab the attention of your target readers. However, when used inappropriately, it can hide your intended message
• Mass: This refers to the amount of space around or between objects. The only time it gets noticed is when a design is cluttered or if there’s too much white space.

 

Design Principles

When utilized properly, design principles will help you place the design elements appropriately. They include:

• Emphasis: This is the element that grabs the attention of your target audience i.e. the focal point of your design.
• Rhythm: The way shapes are used to create a pattern
• Balance: The casual or formal distribution of design elements
• Unity: Combining all the design elements together in a natural looking way

The Fundamentals of Writing Good Copy

After getting an understanding of the basic principles of design, it is time to put pen to paper to develop effective copy. You can worry about choosing the pictures and graphics that will reinforce your message later on in the process.

To write effective copy, there are some things that you need to keep in mind:

• Write from the point of view of your target consumer. In other words, your copy should contain information that your customer wants to know, not what your business wants to say
• Stay away from use of the words “maybe” and “if;” they invite possibility of a negative response from your customer.
• Be sure to phrase any questions in a way that the only answer is “yes.”
• Describe the features and benefits of your product or service
• Once you have finished writing your rough draft, revise you copy to make it concise but descriptive.
• Instead of the common “justified” format, try the “ragged right” type; it is easier to read, breaks the monotony of justified type, and provides the eyes with pleasing variety.
• Make your paragraphs as short as possible; two or three paragraphs on average.
• Use bold or italics when you want to stress a point; capitalization and underlining are now archaic methods to do this.

 

Choosing the Appropriate Font

In order to write an effective message, you must consider the type style that you will be using; the wrong type style can create a link, or a chasm, between the designer and the intended audience of the brochures. Therefore, it’s important to note that types replace the human voice and have the ability to demonstrate expressive tones and moods. For example, there are some that sit down and have a connection with the audience while others shout the messages.

To help you choose the appropriate typeface for your copy, consider the following five factors:

• Readability: Is the text easy to read? Does it convey the information effectively?
• Legibility: Is it easy for you to recognize the characters (letters and numbers) of the typeface?
• Relevance: Does the typeface fit the message that it is trying to convey? Will it attract the intended reader?
• Reproduction value: Is the type easy to reproduce even when different methods of printing are utilized?
• Practicality: Is this font readily available? Is it easy to find?

In addition, there are six major classifications of types that are regularly used by designers. They include:

• Historical Text Type Style: This type is commonly used for formal invitations and announcements e.g. receptions, graduations, and weddings
• Roman Type (Serif) Style: This type has serifs on the letters and is easy to read. It is because of these main two elements that it is commonly used for long passages.
• Sans-Serif Type Style: This type is commonly seen in newspapers, magazines, and books.
• Square-Serif Type Style: This type is perfect for letterheads and headlines that only require little reading
• Script Type Style: This type has a look similar to personal handwriting and is commonly used for invitations, announcements, and advertisements.
• Novelty Type Style: This type includes all the other types that don’t fit into the above classifications

Finding Inspiration

In order to find inspiration for design, take a visit to a major hotel, the Economic Development office, or Chamber of Commerce in your city and make a beeline for their brochure rack. Take some time to study it and ask yourself the following questions:

• Which brochures got your attention immediately?
• Which ones are begging to be picked up?
• What makes the attractive ones so compelling? Is it the typeface, ink color, headline, typeface, visual design, or paper color?

You’re not done yet, consider the brochures that you didn’t select and ask yourself:

• Why didn’t they grab your attention?
• Is there something specific that rendered them seemingly invisible to your radar?
• Do they lack eye-catching graphics?
• Is the typeface hard to read?
• What about the headline? Did it lack sales appeal?
• Was the headline a simple label verses a call to action?
• Is the color of the paper it’s printed on boring?

You may also want to check out the brochures that your competitors have to offer, this may also provide some inspiration.

The Trifold Offers More Bang for Your Buck

When it comes to the actual design of your brochure, you must consider its shape and size; these will vary based on its desired function and aesthetics. In a nutshell, you can be as creative as you like; your only limitation is the size of the paper that the brochure will be printed on and the folds of your margins.

If your budget is tight and are working with a small format printer, a trifold brochure would fit your needs perfectly; they are excellent for regular computer paper. In addition, if you want to switch things up a little, you can experiment on blank paper to determine the best folds for your needs.

Create a Trifold Design Layout in 4 Simple Steps

• Step 1: Create a thumbnail sketch; these are simple and quickly drawn designs for your layout. Once you’ve received your inspiration, from researching other brochures, sketch out the possible designs in your head as quickly as possible. You don’t have to spend a lot of time here, simply do a rough sketch or write down what comes to mind.
• Step 2: Create a rough layout; this is done utilizing a newly drawn version of the thumbnail layout that bares a close resemblance to the final product. Once you’ve gotten a better idea of how the final product/design to look, it’s time to start thinking about margins, folds, images, color, and type. The computer is an integral part of this process and you can use your desktop publishing program to begin your layout. If you find it to be necessary, do some cutting, pasting, resizing, etc. to create the exact look that you are going for.
• Step 3: Create a comprehensive layout; a full color layout that provides a detailed look of the final product. This part of the process is very important and must be handled carefully. It should be done on the computer where you can make use of type, color, and images in the proper space design. The purpose of this “dummy” is to provide you with an example of how the finished brochures are supposed to look and to help suss out any last minute issues with design.
• Step 4: Create a complete detailed representation; this is the final step before printing and it should include all of the images, colors, texts, proper margins, folds, etc. that will be on the final product. Make sure that your page elements closely mirror those of the comprehensive layout, but with any corrections that were needed.

Printing Out Your Brochure

When it’s time to print your brochure, you are faced with two options:

• Printing it yourself: If you have access to a black and white copier, you can use colored paper to jazz things up a little bit. No matter what copier you use, simply run each paper through the printer twice to make sure that the brochure will have two sides. Your design will dictate how the brochure should be reloaded. To make sure things proceed as planned, do a couple of single test sheets beforehand.
• Utilizing the help of professionals: Although printing your own brochure may sound like an attractive option, it may actually be easier and cheaper to have a commercial printing and copying service do this step for you; especially when your budget and the equipment you have available are taken into consideration. Simply, take the digital file that you created on your desktop publishing program or a finished proof to printing experts for reproduction to ensure that the job is done right.

The Bottom Line

A brochure must be able to effectively represent your business in your absence and should tell your customers why your product or service is invaluable to them. On the other hand, if you cut corners and deliver a shoddy piece of material, it speaks volumes as well. Show your customers who you are and what your company has to offer by following the above steps to help you create a well-designed brochure.

Resources:

Design Tips by Mashable