5 Steps for Brochure Design Success
Great brochure design can be a key to your business marketing strategy; however, a professional brochure designer can be cost-prohibitive for many businesses. You can produce your own powerful, cost-effective brochure without the help of a design professional if you remember my five tips for great brochure design.
Contrast: In addition to adding visual interest, contrast draws in your readers and can also be used to give the reader important points so they understand the purpose of the brochure. Contrast is used throughout the elements including color, size, spacing, and font. To make contrast effective, it must be strong or else it looks like a mistake. Use different but complementary fonts, sizes, or colors.
Repetition: Repetition creates a unified look to the piece. You can repeat graphic elements, colors, typefaces, bullets, etc. Did you know that repetition is also used to ensure the headlines are uniform? Ensure that all of your headlines utilize a uniform size and font.
Alignment: When you use consistent alignment, you create nice strong, sharp edges, which in turn makes a good, strong impression. If you insist on using different alignments such as flush left combined with centering, especially with type, you will create a sloppy, wishy-washy impression.
Proximity: Always place items which are similar near each other. Department store ads are a fine example of this. Women's clothing ads are in one section, men's clothing in another, kids' clothing in yet another; home décor in another section, etc.
Spacing: Make use of the spacing tools available in your software. For example instead of using the space bar, use tabs. Many computer users don't understand that when they use spaces instead of tabs the spaces are uneven, regardless of how they look onscreen. Making use of tabs should ensure consistent spacing. Instead of manually double spacing between paragraphs by hitting the enter key twice, set your software up to leave space between paragraphs. Manually setting paragraph spacing creates a larger gap than you need.
Once you begin to use these steps in your own brochure design you will begin to look for them all around you; you will begin critiquing restaurant menus, postcards you receive in the mail, signage in stores. Implementation of simple design and layout concepts to improve presentation can be a very satisfying experience.
Brochure design firms can create excellent marketing collateral. I am sure that by implementing the tips I have discussed, you can create an effective, inexpensive brochure design for your company, service, or products.
About the Author
Chris Howell and Sam represent an award winning brochure and graphic design firm. Chris is a graphic designer, conceptor, and creative thinker with 15 years in the industry. Chris has executed creative ideas across a wide range of media for well known brands such as American Express, Coca-Cola and Energy Australia. To find out more about HalfNine Graphic Design, visit http://www.halfnine.com.au or http://www.brochuredesigngoldcoast.com.au/
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