How to Design a Brochure Template
With time at a premium these days, brochure templates offer a quick way to maintain your brand standards, while giving you flexibility to update your message and customize content based on customer data. Templates take the guesswork out of where to start, while leaving room for creativity. Using a brochure template enables you to build brand recognition by helping customers easily identify you. According to the Heidrick & Struggles survey of U.S. senior executives, the ability to optimize the efficiency of the marketing mix across their businesses and improving the consistency of sales and marketing communications rank among the top objectives for achieving growth.
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Things You'll Need
- Digital publishing or page layout program (Microsoft Publisher, Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress) Clip art or stock photography
Instructions
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How to Design a Brochure Template
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Select your color palette. For ideas, try "Adobe Kuler," where you can create, save and export your own color schemes or browse others. If you use the Adobe Creative Suite, you can import these palettes directly into the program.
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Determine the size, shape and page count of your brochure template. If your brochure will bleed (i.e., print to the edge of paper), a commercial printer will use a larger sheet and trim it to the appropriate size. Ask your printer to suggest how many pages to arrange per sheet to maximize your space.
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In the page layout program, set the margins, including bleeds. The standard setting for bleeds is usually 1/8 inch, but confirm this detail with your printer. To maintain a consistent layout and create a flow to the design, create a grid by setting the columns and horizontal guides to align components of your layout.
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Select "Master Pages" in your program, and then begin your design. Add your images to the layout. You can find free artwork at Microsoft Clip Art Gallery, or you can search other royalty-free image sources, such as iStockPhoto or Shutterstock. Another option is to just include placeholder boxes, allowing the template to be customized at the time of use. Many of the publishing programs offer vector art options, such as boxes, lines, gradations, shapes and glyphs for use in your brochure.
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For the copy, close the "Master Pages" and click on your document pages. Start by drawing text boxes and import "lorem ipsum" (or dummy text) into them. Several resources exist online to create paragraphs, sentences and bullets to use in your layout. Select your font style and size for each area of the template. As a general rule of thumb, limit the number of fonts to no more than two different types per layout. Keep readability in mind when setting size for the body copy. Use a different size font for headlines and subheads.
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When you have completed your page, use "style sheet" settings for the copy. Select headings, subheads, bullet points and body copy and name a style for each different one. The "style" will capture the font, size, color, leading, spacing, kerning, tracking and other special settings, such as bullets.
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Once you complete your pages, print out copies to review. Check for alignment, consistency, appropriate color settings and copy readability.
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Save one normal copy as a backup. Then, save your brochure as a template. Go to "Save As" and select the appropriate template setting. Test the document by closing it and opening the new template brochure document.
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Tips & Warnings
Gather design ideas from the Web, competitors, books and brochures you have received. Save costs by employing standard brochure sizes with a limited number of folds. Leave enough white space to maximize readability and to draw attention the key messages. Once the color palette is set for the template, remove extraneous colors to ensure consistency. If you want to use the brochure for various business units or products, keep your design template simple and use colored papers to distinguish each one.
If you are selling your template or making it available online for use, verify that you have the appropriate permissions for all of your images. Fonts vary from computer to computer, and a missing font can lead to varied results. Save your fonts with your template, or if you do not have permissions, indicate where the fonts are available for purchase. To avoid this altogether, choose fonts that are common to most computers, such as Arial or Times.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Microsoft Clip Art Gallery
