The brochure is an important marketing tool to introduce about your company’s products and services to your customers. Before figuring out the best way to distribute brochures to your targets, marketing team needs to go through different steps of the design process. For some, this process is pretty simple with just a few steps. For others, it takes many steps which mean a lot of time and efforts because their requirements are more complicated. We’ll provide here with key steps to design brochure for your reference.
1. Identify the purposes of your brochure
This is one of the most important steps. Regardless of your company scale, once you’ve decided that you need a brochure, it’s crucial to know 3 key things:
What is it for?
Is it to introduce about your company in general? If yes, then this is usually called a corporate brochure which includes your company history, vision, mission, key products. Or is it to introduce about your products and/or services? If yes, then this is a product brochure which details out your product information.
Who is it for?
Once you’ve known what your brochure is for, you’ll be able to define your targets. If it’s a corporate brochure, it’s usually meant to be sent out or distributed to your business partners. If it’s a product brochure, it can also target your business partners, but most likely, it aims to communicate with your customers or buyers.
When will you need it?
Deadline will help you to identify your budget and allocate your human resources. If you need it urgently, for example, for the next trade exhibition that will be organized in the next 2 weeks, then it probably costs you quite a lot. In some certain cases, the brochure is part of a marketing campaign so the brochure deadline should be aligned with the deadline of other marketing materials of this campaign.
2. Collect necessary elements/content for your brochure
Gather all elements you’ll need to design brochure into a folder. This list of elements varies, depending on what type of brochure you’re going to design. Below are the typical elements that most brochure contains:
Company logo
Make sure you have the logo in its highest quality possible, meaning the best resolution in different formats (AI, PSD, TIFF). In case you’ve have recently revised your logos in the past, it’s crucial to make sure that you use the latest.
Contact details
Office addresses, phone numbers, email addresses of key members in your company are necessary. If you’re operating in different branches, include their details in as well.
Product images and/or logos
This is applicable to companies that have different product ranges. You might want to pick key products that you want to design brochure. Different product images/logos are relevant to different audiences. That said, do not jump to this step if you haven’t got a clear idea on your targets.
Company images
If you’re working on a corporate brochure, this is a must-have step. Choose the best photos that represent your company. They can be photos that show your company history, your key product lines, your factories, your offices. They can also be the photos of your management team or the sales and marketing team. Since brochure resolution will decide the printing quality, make sure that all these photos are in high resolution.
Company messages
These are texts to tell the story of your company and its slogan. You might already have this ready years ago but it was not carefully written. If this is the case, perhaps you need a copywriter to rewrite it. Beautifully written texts, just like images, play an important role in the effectiveness of your brochure.
Information about your products
Your customers need to know what your products/services are, what they can do. If you have a wide variety of products, make sure their details/specifications are well-organized into categories to avoid confusing your designers.
3. Put your ideas into sketches or pick a template
To have ideas for your own design brochure, you might need to gather all members of your marketing team together for a brainstorming session. Once you’ve got the ideas, shortlist them and then get your designers to sketch them. After having all the sketches, place all of them on the tables and consider the pros and cons of each sketch. You’ve got your rationale to decide which sketch to go with, insert final text, logos, images in your layout.
Alternatively, pick an available template that fits in with your needs. A collection of brochure templates provided by DesignBold – which is an excellent brochure maker to facilitate your design process, saving you lots of time and money. You don’t really need to have well-trained, experienced graphic designers or art directors in your team to be able to design your brochure.
4. Check all visuals and texts
Visuals and texts of any marketing materials need to harmonies with each other to maximize the marketing effects. The brochure is certainly not an exception. That said, once all elements are put together in a chosen brochure layout, check to see if visuals and texts match with each other. Ensure the clarity of all messages. Have different team members proofread it
5. Choose the right paper for brochure print
Now it’s almost done. You must be excited to hold the brochure in your hand. The right paper has a big influence on how your brochure will look like. Aside from the design, paper quality can make or break the first impression that you want to create.
Matte paper gives your brochure a professional look while the uncoated paper fits in with many business categories. Gloss paper can make your brochure look beautiful and luxurious. This is the best fit for fashion and beauty brands. The moment your customers touch your brochure and hold it in their hands, they can already say quite a lot about you. So, choose paper carefully.
Conclusion
Designing a brochure for print has so much fun, but it also comes with dozens of considerations, especially if it is not something you’re excellent at. By learning simple design tips first, you can imagine how your brochure will actually look when it’s on paper. Then you can get everything ready for the prepress process. Hopefully, our guide will help you create stunning brochure papers. Thank you for reading!