subject: Brochure Design For Graphic Artists [print this page] Brochures are a vital element for many businesses to promote their product or service. From as simple as a tri-folded piece of standard copy paper, produced on your local printer to an elaborate booklet produced on heavy paper by a printing service a brochure is always effective for advertising. Your brochure must be designed with care and forethought, whether you are prepared to make a large investment or just need an economical handout for your customers.
Selling Your Business: The Important Elements
In order for a brochure to function, that is, communicate the message that you intend your audience to receive, you will need to ask some critical questions. Is your brochure targeted towards promoting your whole business or just a product or service? Is your brochure effectively targeting an age group, social class, education level, or culture? And what is the importance of this? Because your brochure must be tailored to your audience as a sales tool.
At minimum, make sure that your brochure contains the following information, regardless of the type of brochure or target audience. The title, of course. This could be your business name, the product or service or anything that can attract the audience while being relevant. There should also be some text describing the business, product, or service. Don't forget your contact details. If ever the customer decides to buy what you are selling, make sure they would know how.
Don't take this part for granted. Before the age of the internet contact information means a company name, mailing address, and phone number. Today, those elements come second. Today, the essentials are the website and, if need be, an email address, all this information should be in the brochure.
'A call to action' should also be in your brochure. This tells the reader what you want them to do. It's either 'please donate to our charity today,' or 'take advantage of this great sale' before a particular date or whatever you want. You may include a business reply mailer or a small form for a patron to make a donation. Pictures should be included. I'm sure you are wondering when the art part of the discussion will start, but everything mentioned above has to do with graphic design and layout. Images and pictures are just a part of the whole brochure. All parts have to work together, whether it's text or images.
Make sure that the images are clear and crisp. Don't hesitate to crop images, to remove any useless information. To be able to expand and crop the images, use a vector-based graphic program. One essential aspect to remember when designing your brochure is that all of the parts, text and images, have to blend seamlessly to communicate a clear message to your audience.
