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Brochures can serve two main functions: either to attract attention or to give details of your product or service. Deciding on what you want your brochure to function as is your first step to good brochure design. Read on to find out more about these two types of brochures and to discover some basic brochure design tips.
Attraction Brochures
These brochures are for your prospects, or to introduce a new product or service that current customers don't know about. These types of brochures are designed to elicit feelings by playing on the emotions of customers. These are the types of brochures you want on display in a display rack, or next to your cash register. They should be simple, without a lot of text and photos. They should contain a call to action – a statement or command that tells the customer to contact you by calling you, visiting your Web site, etc.
Detailed Brochures
These brochures are for the customer who knows your company and wants more information. This person has already seen your Attraction Brochures and is now looking for more information. These types of brochures should have lots of information – a lot more text than Attraction Brochures. These brochures should not be in display racks. People passing by will not want to pick these up because they'll look like too much information to wade through. But the people who are already interested in your company or product will want this extra information.
Don't Depend on Your Brochure as Your Only Marketing Technique
Don't expect your brochure to be the “be all and end all.” You shouldn't be counting on your brochure to make the sale for you; it should just entice people to contact you. Brochures generally educate the customers about what benefits your product can provide. Keep in mind that you want to tout benefits, not features, in your brochure copy.
Basics of Brochure Design
Write your copy first. Make sure you get the words you need on the brochure first. You can add and subtract photos a lot easier than text!
Edit and proofread. Whatever you have written for your final draft can often be pared down even further. Shorter is better when it comes to brochures. Then make sure you proofread your work – nothing is more unprofessional than seeing grammatical and spelling mistakes in your brochure printing pieces.
Decide on a bi-fold or tri-fold design. Tri-folds (two folds, six panels) is more common for brochures than bi-folds (one fold, four panels). If you need to go into more detail, as in a Detailed Brochure, a bi-fold design would work better because you have more space to expand on one idea or benefit. A tri-fold design is better for the Attraction Brochure because you don't need much detail and can use each panel to promote a different benefit. It's easier to break up information with a tri-fold design.
Use ragged right paragraphs. Ragged right refers to the right side of paragraphs. If the ends of the lines line up evenly, then the words are “justified.” When they ends (the right side of the paragraph) do not line up evenly, they are “ragged right.” Ragged right text is easier to read.
Use sans serif font for headlines and serif font for body text. Small text is easier to read when it's set in serif font – font with “feet,” like Times New Roman. Sans serif (“without feet”) fonts like Arial work well for bigger text because they aren't so easy to read when they are smaller.