Design Principles-Putting it Together: LAYING OUT A BROCHURE

-So you have a brochure design for a company, and you don't know where to start? Here are some easy tips and pictures to support what to do and what NOT to do when it comes to laying out the template of a brochure.

-Now for some of the even most qualified designers, putting together a brochure can be time consuming and difficult to construct. There are folds, a lot of information to include, and dimensions that can throw a wrench into anyone's work process. However, there are many tutorials and articles on the before-stages of designing brochures, as well as templates that can be downloaded online. Luckily for the beginners and non-designers out there, we're sticking to the basics until one is ready to handle a higher level of difficulty.

1. Know Your Purpose

-There is one critical thing that is essential to creating a brochure. The first step is identifying the purpose of the brochure you or the client wants to accomplish. It needs to tie directly into the target audience, while having appeal and a professional look. One can use methods such as educating, informing or entertaining the audience.

2. Choose Your Panels

-The next thing you need to do is decide the number of panels or faces are going to be in the brochure...duh. Ask yourself some questions, such as how much information is in the brochure? How is it going to be utilized? How unique will the design be? (again, start off basic if you're just learning). Is it going to be used for mailing? How much money does your budget allow you to spend?
There are important decisions to consider when creating your brochure!

3. Have a Catchy Phrase

- An attention-getting phrase or graphic is essential to have on the cover of one's brochure. Separate your brochure from all of the other general and cliche ones out there. This most often occurs in educational or informative types of brochures. The product appears on the cover with the information listed inside most commonly. As for educational brochures, (used the least) one might see puzzles, drawings, games, and a number of graphics.

4. Sort Through the Hierarchy of Information

- Discuss with your client...or if you are your client decide the order of information that you're including in the brochure. Start of course with the primary information and move down from there. With this being said, the panels should be placed so you can see where you want to put the information. Ask yourself questions such as, should the panels relate or hold distinct differences of information?

5. Start Designing!

When all of the previous steps ^ are thought through and finished, one can actually start thinking about the design process. Take into consideration food and basic elements of design to start off with. One doesn't want information and design to conflict. Remember, that balance, scale, color, negative space and the body copy are essential parts to the design and need to be deeply considered.

-These are some pointers that are just getting you started. Follow me on twitter for the sequel to this blogpost for some tips on the actual designing aspects of brochures. In the meantime, check out these examples below for inspiration! Some of them are a little out of reach for beginning designers, but are still enjoyable to look at!