As a large company, creating printed materials like postcards, brochures, and mailers is essential. Unfortunately, many businesses are frustrated with creating printed advertisements because they’re not getting what they envisioned when designing a brochure. Even worse, they discover that many of these informational pieces bore customers and usually end up in the recycle bin.

If you want to learn how to talk to your designer or printer, and you want to ensure that your brochure is captivating and interesting, read on to learn about designing, printing, and writing your next brochure.

What’s So Great About Print?

Print advertising has several advantages over digital media advertising. One of the most important, is the sensory experience. Giving someone something that they can hold, feel, and closely examine can create many more links in their memory than simply watching an advertisement. Printed advertisements are also relatively cheap ways to inundate your target market with reminders of your business and its services.

Another important aspect of print media includes the longevity of paper and ink versus a film or an ad. Your potential customers can keep the advertisements you send them, stick them on the fridge, or keep them by the phone. These are tangible items they’ll see every day, instead of just once while watching TV.

Developing a Strong Identity

An important part of creating a strong brochure starts at the very roots of an organization: its name. Without a powerful, memorable name, even with the best writing and visuals in the world, people will have a hard time remembering your product or service. Choosing the right business name, and thus creating a compelling identity, needs to inform and attract customers.

While you also want to choose a name that appeals to you, customers are a much more important people to satisfy. Keeping your name simple, broad, and informative ensures that customers understand the name and know what you’re selling. With a name that’s too long or confusing, consumers will be frustrated and bewildered by your company; not a strong first impression.

Powerful Visual Appeal

Once your name has been decided, you’ll need to consider the power of a logo. You want to create the same recall consumers experience when they hear the name of a major brand; instantly the colors and logo associated with that company will pop into their heads.

To create a logo with colors that are appropriate to your services, products, and industry, it’s a good idea to research color psychology and learn about what colors represent. There is evidence that certain colors can provoke specific emotions in your customers. Use these emotions to your advantage. Some basic colors and their corresponding industries include:

• Restaurants & Food: Red and Yellow
• Merchandising: Red
• Hospitality & Medical Services: Blue or Green
• Security Companies: Blue or White
• Luxury Vehicles: Black
• Communication Industry: Pink

Since these colors are already established with their industries, you can use this as a basis for choosing your logos and colors. Conduct your own research to expand your color choices and create a logo that people can instantly identify.

Personalized Customization

Just like your logo and your name are a personal reflection of your business and its ideals, a brochure also needs to reflect those same concepts. A company that sells novelty ring items will have a very different brochure than one that sells high-end diamond rings.

To properly portray your company, you need to ensure that your brochure is interesting and captivating. You need to grab the attention of the customer instantly and make them curious about your product. Some interesting ways to capture attention include:

• Beautiful imagery
• Informative content
• Metallic inks
• UV coating
• Foil stamping
• Embossing

All of these tactics engage the customer’s senses and makes them want to touch and view more of your brochure.

Once you’ve grabbed their attention, you can maintain a customer’s interest by giving them something with the brochure that they can use on a day to day basis. Pens, notepads, and water bottles emblazoned with your logo and information creates a pattern in a customer’s mind that consistently reminds them that you exist.

Unique Design Aspects

A really unique way to engage a consumer’s interest, includes the cut of your brochure. This is a more affordable option than luxury inks and a few hundred pens.

When you think of a brochure, usually a piece of glossy paper that’s folded into three parts comes to mind. Instead of allowing your brochure to follow this boring pattern, redesign it to fold or open in interesting ways. In fact, simple cut outs along the top of your brochure is enough to change its aesthetic and create interest.

You can explore an origami style brochure, folded into an interesting shape, a brochure with popups, or a single page brochure that’s shaped like one of your products. Presented in one of these styles, you’ll have an unforgettably modern brochure, that’s creative and exciting.

Designing a brochure that’s a different shape isn’t the only way to create a distinct layout; you can also break the rules of traditional brochure with the placement of your text. Generally, a brochure’s text is segmented along the three parts within the folded areas. Find a more creative way to organize your writing and you’ll surprise and delight the customer.

Only the Information They Need

When you’re writing content for your brochure, it’s tempting to include every single piece of information about your company. This style of writing, though, contains too much information for a customer to process. They’ll get bored and they won’t read it at all.

You want to include just enough information in your brochure to briefly inform a customer of your company history and services, but omit enough content, so that they are driven to call you directly for more information.

To help you figure out only the essential information about your company, write to the consumer about a problem you can solve for them. Framed this way, you’re putting a focus on the customer, relating to the reader, and giving direction to your writing.

If you’re company has several different branches or a few large departments, you can create a variety of brochures that each focus on one topic. Make sure to include a brief company overview in each brochure, as well as a little information of each topic.

Color it In

There are three categories when it comes to designating color for your printed products: CMYK, Pantone Color System, and RGB.

CMYK refers to the four main colors used with printers that use this palette. They stand for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. Every single shade and hue created by this palette is made from just these four colors.

When they’re combined to create the different shades you want to use in your brochure, there is a specific numerical designation that names the colors. Once you know the names of the colors you use, you can go to any printer or designer and tell them you preferences to ensure that all of your printed materials are consistent, even if you use a different printer or a different brand of ink.

The Pantone Color System

The Pantone Color System is another universal standard for color that ensures consistency across all platforms. Since the company was founded in 1963, they pioneered a system for matching colors that’s used by graphic designers worldwide. They developed this system to create matching tones on printed materials that have different coatings and textures. Using the Pantone Color System allows you to print on glossy, matte, coated, and uncoated paper with perfectly matched colors.

RGB

RGB is generally reserved for digital use and refers to the color palette that digital devices, like cameras and computers, use to view an image. RGB stands for red, green, and blue, and the shades created by the digital device uses only mixtures of these three colors.

Ink It

There are three different types of ink available for print: solid, pigment, and dye. While solid ink uses ink bricks that rub onto the page to create color, pigment printing uses a fine powder that sits on top of the page. Neither one of these methods allow the ink to sink into the threads of a piece of paper, but both retain bright color for a long period of time.

Dye ink is the only liquid based ink available and it soaks into the paper fibers during printing. Though this type of ink is most affordable, it does tend to bleed, causing separate colors to run together. Furthermore, when untreated, it may fade quickly when exposed to UV light. To find UV-resistant cheap ink, purchase re-manufactured ink.

Paper Types

When considering paper for your brochure there are two main types: coated and uncoated. Coated paper usually has a glossy look to it with a very smooth surface. It’s also often coated with UV protection to ensure longevity.

Uncoated paper has a matte quality and is most notably used in regular home or office printers. Matte printing is often very detailed, with no reflection or glare.

Many brochures are printed on coated, glossy paper to attract the attention of customers. When considering which kind of paper to use for your brochure, make sure that the paper is in-line with the services of your company. If you’re selling high-end luxury items, for example, perhaps you should use matte paper, as glossy paper will look too cheesy. Other services like children’s day care or restaurants, would benefit from the a glossy coating more than a matte display.

An Exciting Brochure

You know your brochure is exciting and successful when customers take one from your counter. You’ll suddenly experience an influx of calls from potential customers and your company will garner much more interest. Next time you’re designing your brochure, take these tips into consideration and discover the difference that design, ink, color, and paper can make.