How to Design a Brochure

Whatever you need a brochure for, whether it is to communicate company information, attract new users, announce new products or services, the basic formula stays the same; keep it simple. Many brochures are packed with so much information that the brochures fail to capture its audience and therefore are a complete waste of time. So here are a few pointers to help you design a successful brochure.

Placement of material is vitally important in the success of a
brochure. Important information must be put in prominent areas of the page, being the top 3rd of a page. This is the first location that the eyes travel to when landing on a page, so all vital information should be placed here. Stay away from putting important information near the edges of the page as there is less chance of them being noticed.

Use a grid system to organise information in a format that is neat and uniformed. Grid systems are where you use rules to mask out areas such as margins, headers, image areas and text areas. Usually, columns are used to divide the page and allow for a structured content layout. By sticking within certain borders, you can achieve a layout that is less like everything has been chucked onto a page and more like a thought out, successful piece of design.

Keep colours simple to allow for easy understanding and better legibility for readers. Stay well away from bright multicoloured backgrounds that will make it difficult to read and identify separate areas. Pastel and light colours or backgrounds with low opacity work well behind text to define text areas and to make reading the text more gently on the eyes.

Images speak a thousand words, so keep text to a minimal and use relevant images to enhance what you are trying to communicate. Using the right images can attract to eye in and can actually encourage people to read the information about the images. But don't overdo it with images either. It's important to have white space on a page to balance and compliment the information that is help within the page.

When designing a brochure, many people forget about the treatment of text. Body text should use a non descriptive font that it san serif allowing it to be clear and easy to read. However, text for headers can be a little more adventurous. Header text show draw attention to what the page is about so it should be bold, decorative and have an attractive wording to encourage readers to stop and look at the page.

For more about brochure design, visits Evolution Design at http://www.evolution-design.co.uk. This graphic design agency supplies brochure design, logo design, graphic design and web design in Edinburgh.