Creating a brochure is something anyone can do now with the many brochure making software available on the Internet. Those who do not have the time or the inclination of making their own brochures can always hire one of the many online and offline printers who will print brochures for you at a price. However, it is the tips to create a professional quality brochure that has to be kept in mind when making a brochure. The first and best thing to do before creating a brochure is to collect and study brochures found around you. Find out what it is that sets one design to be more appealing than another is. By carefully studying the other designs, you can very well develop your sense of good design to create a good-looking brochure. Once you have got an idea of what the brochure should look like, you have to decide which group of people you are catering your information to. Choose a font that best expresses the voice you desire, like perhaps a professional, humorous or casual one, and still manage to keep your message clear. It is not advisable to use more than two fonts in the brochure, as in doing so; you distract the reader from your message. Instead, to get your message through, you could vary the font size of individual parts of the design according to its importance in the brochure. It is of no use underlining matter for prominence as it only causes clutter and makes the text harder to read. Next comes the part of placing the right information in the respective pages of the brochure. Decide which information is necessary, and arrange this information in order of its importance. The clearer you are about the order of importance in the brochure, the better the brochure will be. To get the best placing for your matter, it is better to make sketches and move the matter around till you get the best layout. If you have to use boxes and bars in the brochure, use them sparingly as although they work well for directing one’s attention and separating busy areas, too many of them makes your brochure look cluttered and confusing. You could try other options for grouping and separating like making the more important information being larger, bolder or brighter than other information. Make sure to promote your company in the brochure, as this is the main aim of a brochure! People are always more comfortable dealing with a known entity. So if you promote you and your company with it’s credentials and credibility, the customer feels more comfortable dealing with you. Make sure you include such information in the brochure that speaks for you when you are not there. Don’t forget to stick to general terms of quality and leadership when promoting the products of your company instead, state what it is that you have and no one else has. This is bound to increase sales to your company. When promoting service and warranty in the brochure, make sure that it also relates to reliability, as people need reliable and loyal services when dealing with a company. You could also consider including testimonials or client lists in your brochure. You will be surprised at the wonders good references make! There is no point on including cliches and trendy jargon in your brochure, as not everyone can understand this jargon. The prospective of the brochure is lost if not everyone can understand whatever it is that you print in the brochure. Try to keep some negative space in the brochure to create a relationship between the contents and the page and bring specific information into focus. Having some empty or white space in the brochure affects the overall tone of lightness and heaviness of the brochure. Whatever design or layout you choose for the brochure, it is always better to keep the brochure as simple as possible. Place only the necessary ingredients for communicating your message in the brochure. If you feel like placing graphic elements in the brochure for ornamental reasons, first ask yourself if they help in directing the reader’s attention or only serves as a distraction. There are hundreds of paper colors available for using on the brochure. However, the most effective brochures are usually done in only one or two colors. Sometimes, black and white brochures prove to be more dramatic than colored brochures. Remember that the cost of printing has to be taken into consideration when choosing colors for the brochure. The more colors there are, the more expensive will be the printing costs. Paper too comes in a wide range of colors, sizes and textures. You could also consider using recycled paper which adds an interesting flair to your brochure design and also reduces the impact we make on our natural resources. However, recycled paper is more expensive than regular paper, and could make the printing of your brochure more expensive. After completing the layout and choosing the font and paper for the brochure, it is important to proofread your brochure. Proofread it several times before having it printed, as once printed, it is impossible to fix an error not spot. Reading lines backwards is a good idea for checking errors. Once all this is done, stand back and look critically at the overall layout of the brochure. If needed, you could also get someone else to look at the layout to give his or her views on it. If everyone, including you, is happy that this is a great brochure, then go ahead and print it!
