Design in Mind: Winning the Battle of the Business Brochure
A business brochure provides you with the perfect opportunity to showcase your products and services and show tell customers what you can do for them.
A well-designed brochure will also allow you to convey information such as prices, special features and offers and is the chance to raise your business profile and acquire more customers, provide you get your brochure right.
Starting out
The first thing you need to do before you even start working on the layout and design, is to work out what it is you want to achieve with your brochure and how you want message it is going to deliver to those that read it.
Make sure you stock up on your ink cartridge supplies through a supplier like StinkyInk.com, as you will probably be printing lots of prototype pages and designs so that you can see how the information and images can be arranged to have the best visual impact.
Experiment with headings and also work out what order you want all the content to be in, which includes what will go on your cover page, as this will be the one that makes the biggest impact with customers.
public domain pic from May 4 1916
Size and quantity
It is also relevant to decide early on what size your pages are going to be and how many pages your brochure will have in total.
This will help determine the volume of content to be included and the size of paper may also influence the layout too. Also decide the weight of the paper you want to use as well as how many brochures you actually want.
All of these aspects need to be sorted so that you have a much clearer idea of the parameters you are working too and it makes sense to decide on a budget for the project at this point too.
Designing the layout
Collate all the information that you need in terms of the written content that you intend to use, which includes specifications and prices if you are including these.
Make sure you have all the images you intend to use ready to go and build a check list of content requirements, so that when you start to design the layout, you have everything you need for the brochure.
Experiment with the font and size of the lettering, so that the text is easy to read. If your budget will extend to using a graphic designer, they can work the images and text into a presentable format ready for your approval.
If you are designing the layout yourself, do remember the psychology of colours and work on some prototypes until you are happy with the impact and suitability of your colour scheme. Also don’t forget to check how your images look and how well they flow with the text around it.
Proofing
It is absolutely critical that you proof everything before you finally go ahead and get the brochure printed.
Spelling errors or pricing mistakes will come back to haunt you every time you look at the finished brochure and will spoil its impact, so take your time going through all the information and checking that all the content is exactly how you want it.
Once you have completed your design, you are ready to arrange for printing, and hopefully reap the rewards of your beautifully designed brochure, when it is received by new and existing customers.
Guest Author :
John Sollars is a business owner of many years who likes to help others get started. He is always looking for winning ways to succeed and then he shares them online. You can read his informative articles on a variety of websites and blogs.
