Do’s and Don’ts in Brochure Design and Printing

Brochure design and printing aren’t hard, but it does take time to learn how to do them right. Here’s a cheat sheet of do’s and don’ts to follow when you’re designing and printing brochures.

Don’t clutter your brochure with tons of text and graphics just because you have the space. Only include necessary information, like benefits and testimonials. Of course, the necessary information will vary depending on the function and audience of the brochure.

White space refers to any space in your design that isn’t filled by text, photos or any design element. It’s good to have white space! If you cram too much text or too many photos onto your brochure, people won’t know what to look at first. Their eyes will also get tired from seeing so much at once. Fight the urge to use every square centimeter of your brochure space.

The right colors in your brochures can evoke the feeling you want your customers or prospects to feel as soon as they see your brochure. Brochure colors that complement your logo colors or other established colors (like in your company’s name) will make your brochures look professional. Don’t use lots of blue because you like blue; use blue because you want to make readers feel relaxed or trustful of you.

No one wants to read a long-winded brochure. Resist the urge to cram every square inch of the brochure with text. Use photos to tell a story and use only as many words as needed. Keep the page length, sentences and paragraphs short.

Your brochure needs a page bleed on each page where the color continues off the page to account for shifts in the cutting of your brochures at the printer. Brochures are printed in large sheets and then later cut into single units. The cutting blade often shifts just slightly, so if you don’t have a page bleed, you could end up with brochures with white edges. If you’re designing your own brochure, software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and QuarkXPress all have a page bleed setting. It’s best to have a 1/8-inch page bleed. That should be enough to cover any blade shifts.

Not everybody knows how important the quality of your paper can affect and complement your brochure design. Some paper types absorb color better and some give your designs a dull finish. Having prior knowledge before choosing the type of paper to use for your brochure will give you the advantage of getting way better results for a few bucks' worth more of your budget. You can choose from many different paper types for your brochure as well as different UV coatings. The higher the number of pounds (100# versus 80#), the thicker the paper. UV coatings reduce finger smudge as well as ink fading that comes with time.

Check the paper sizes offered by the online printer. The paper size you choose will affect your design in content as well as size. If you start out your design at one size and decide you’d like to downsize it, you’ll need to redesign the brochure in your design software because it won’t print right if the printer simply shrinks the entire file.

Low resolution images look blurry and unprofessional when printed. Save photos at a minimum of 300 dpi (dots per inch) or higher for the clearest prints.