A great business often has a great image. Without a great representation, a company is perceived to be mediocre. However, most companies are still stuck in the mediocrity and do not command that trust for their stakeholders.
Regardless of the internal nitty-gritty of your business, it should appear to be doing well. Most companies rely on various forms of advertising and PR activities to cultivate such an image.
This is a good business strategy as it keeps the customers comfortable and helps in the growth of a company’s top line.
Another way of building and maintaining your company’s image is by using creative professionals. These designers revamp your company’s external image by giving a creative and professional look to your marketing collateral such as company brochures.
Designing a company brochure is an interactive activity that involves its team members as well as professional designers.
Like designers, the team members have an equally vital role to play. However, not everyone has a creative eye for detail.
So, we have made a collection of tips to ensure the participation of your team in a creative and vital exercise like brochure design.
Purpose or reason
It is essential for every team member to know the purpose of creating a new brochure. The goal could be the launch of a new product or just revamping the outlook for a new trade show.
Whatever the purpose may be, it is essential for us to know why and for whom the brochure is created.
The styling and messaging often change with a change in purpose.
Research competition
The market is crowded, and stiff competition always awaits you. Researching the competition means knowing what your competitors are strong at, their weaknesses, their preparedness, learning from their past success and mistakes.
Without adequate competition research, your brochure design activity can end up without giving any fruitful results.
To do proper research, collect as many brochures that your competitors have used in the past. It will be best if you could get hold of a new one.
Check for the presentation style and copy. If you have many competitors, compare their brochures and select the best parts from each one.
Proper competition research will ensure a great brochure that will have the ability to impress your audience. An excellent booklet also means more business and ever-expanding audience for your products and services.
Brainstorm ideas
Brainstorming is a process of sitting down with your team members and asking their opinions. Brainstorming process is vital to the success of your brochure design activity.
Without a brainstorming session, you could end up with a dull and monotonous looking brochure. There is a high chance your brochure looks like a poor copy of your competitor’s catalog.
When looking at competition brochures, you are bound to get many ideas for your own. Make a not of all these different ideas, sit down with your team and ask their opinion.
This will, in turn, bring up many other purposes. Now you need to identify, which ideas are best for you. The brainstorming process brings up a completely different perspective and approach to brochure designing.
A correctly done brainstorming session will ensure your brochure stands out and gets noticed by your audience. This also means your message gets effectively delivered, which is the primary objective of this activity.
Use consistent typography
Typography refers to fonts and word styles in the copy of your brochure. Things like the size of headlines, sub-titles and main text collectively constitute the typography.
Another aspect of typography is font family. It is advised to use similar or complimenting font families while designing a brochure.
Font families could be modern, contemporary, vintage or retro. You must choose a font family depending on your target audience and the overall design of the brochure.
Using starkly contrasting font families may give a very unbalanced and unprofessional look to the brochure.
Fonts can alter the whole appearance and perception of your brochure. To know more, read our blog post on Hidden Personality Traits in the Fonts.
Use simple copy
Body copy is the main readable content of your brochure. Your audience will read it to know about your services or products.
Body copy is written with very selective, and jargon like vocabulary often becomes difficult to read and understand.
A simple copy ensures that the message gets across to your audience in a fast and effective way.
Select best images
Most people won’t read the entire text of the brochure. They may just have a look at the main pictures and make a perception of your company.
Disconnected and poorly arranged pictures can lead to a negative perception.
Make sure you select the right images that go well with your body copy.
Also, the images should be from some stock photography website or clicked by a professional photographer.
It is often noticed that a brochure with high-quality pictures stands out from a crowd of ordinary ones.
The takeaway from this blog is that your brochure should be a well-researched piece of marketing material. It should be created by professionals who know how to put text and graphics together in the right way. After all, who wants to risk that crucial first impression?
