BROCHURE

What is a brochure?

The brochure is one of the best ways to present your company. There are tri-fold brochures used to advertise a new product or service that your company offers, or there are bi-fold folders that are used to present your company projects outside or inside it. There are different brochure types, and every type has a different way to be designed. The criterion adopted to design a bi-fold brochure to present your company projects for internal use would be different from the one for external use. A well designed brochure is the best way to introduce your company to your potential customers.

A brochure has three functions:

• Informative function: a brochure is usually used to inform your potential customers with regards to your company. This information is related to your company presentation, a new product or service that your company offers, or a recent change in your company name, etc.
• Advertising function: a brochure is really important as an advertising tool, which attractively allows you to promote one or more products or services. For further details this function will be analyzed in the section called Advertising aspect.
• Identification function: a well-done brochure design allows you to maintain a same criterion through all your company brochures. If this criterion (sometimes called concept) is unified in all the brochure types, it will make your company to be recognized automatically. It will give to your company prestige and credibility. It is important for your company brochure not only have a “concept”, but also to have a logo: a well designed logo is essential for any company, is one of the first steps to start an advertising campaign.

These three functions should have an interaction. The brochure should be the result of that interaction, otherwise it won’t be effective. Maybe one of those stands out more than the others, but this shouldn’t affect your brochure design. For example, if your company launches a new product and decides to have a brochure designed for this launch, the function that will stand out on your brochure would be the advertising one, even though this brochure could have information regarding the product and at the same time represent your company.

But if your company presents a project to another company’s executives, the function that would appear at the first sight in this brochure is the identification one, which makes your company to be seen secure and prestigious, while the advertising and the informative functions would be in a second place.

The brochure is very important when we talk about your corporate image. You have to discuss with your design company what would be the best brochure format to choose, since that choice is decisive if you want your company to be identified in an efficient way. An advertising brochure could be colorful and have big typography, but those characteristics aren’t the right ones for a project presentation, since that project could have a simple, austere and formal brochure design. Morphologically it’s not the same presenting a project with a tri-fold brochure than with folder with inserts. Maybe both options ate right, but you have to decide which one will be more convenient and if it will maximize your benefits.

You could find out more about this morphological aspect in the section called Brochure types, where we’ll be showing you different brochure formats.

In a few words, to plan your company brochure you have to:

• Think about your brochure objective and function.
• Stand out one of its functions, like informative, advertising or identification functions.
• Check if those functions are in the brochure, even though one stands out and the others don’t.
• Choose the right brochure format based on its objective.

Brochure types

In this section well be showing you different brochure types and their morphological features. As we said before, choosing the right brochure format will determine its effectiveness.

It isn’t necessary to have your brochure format already decided; you could have in mind some options or your design company could suggest you a specific format depending on your objective. Some formats are chosen not only for the way the information is presented in these, but also for their comfort and morphological aspect. For example, a marketing investigator would rather prefer presenting his marketing investigation in a bi-fold brochure with inserts, because it would be not only the more convenient way, but also it would allow him to put his report inside the folder, to have his name and the company name he works for or the one that requested the report on its cover.

These are the more common formats; they’re followed by a picture in order for you to imagine which one you would like to order for your company.

·         Bi-fold brochure Letter or A4 size

·         Leaflet Letter or A4 size

·         Bi-fold brochure A3 size

·         Tri-fold A3 size

·         Folder with flap and inserts

These are the more usual formats that generally contain or help to organize the brochure functions. But sometimes there are other formats not so well known that you could use for a specific situation. Among those formats we could mention the envelope, having an enveloped designed could be really effective for your corporate image. Sending envelopes with products, services or promotions information is an investment. A potential customer will consider your company as an important and prestigious one, even more if he receives a letter with your corporate image on its envelope. Some people think that having your own envelopes is just a detail, but it can’t be denied that your company will be seen in a different way than before.

It doesn’t mean that if your company doesn’t have its own envelopes it’s not a prestigious one (that happens with major companies), but we want you to consider this brochure type as an interesting an affordable way to improve your corporate image.

Having a brochure will improve your image and your profits.

The size is other morphological aspect. You have to consider the brochure size when you’re thinking about your brochure design and objective.

It’s important having the brochure size chosen at the time of designing, because it will determine how the designer will be working. It will be different for him working with a small brochure than with a big one.

The format and its size have to coincide with the intention of your brochure. For example, doing a tri-fold brochure with an A3 size to be given out in the streets is not effective, because it would be difficult to be kept and would be inconveniencing the receiver. And if the receiver decides to keep it, he would need to fold something that is already folded (the way a brochure is folded is the way that you want the information to be read), and when he decides to read it, he would be having in his hands a brochure that doesn’t show off. This is a damage for you and your company. Therefore, the best solution in this situation would be having a smaller size than before, so that could be kept without having to be folded.

Doing a brochure

In this section we will be providing you with information about the elements that you have to collect to be given to your design company before they start designing your brochure.

Firstly, you have to think the objective or intention of your brochure, if it is going to be an advertising or informative brochure, for internal or external use, or both. If it is going to be distributed to everybody or to a few people. We mentioned this in other sections already.

Secondly, you have to have the text that you are going to use in your brochure. But before, you need to have an interview with somebody that works in the design company, that can help you to know how the text should be done (if you prefer you could exchange this ideas by mail). This representative will let you know how this text should be presented, how many characters you should use, and if it is going to be written in an informal or formal way.

Some companies have writers that can write the text for your brochure, and that can help you to delegate to them something that you might not have the time for doing.

Thirdly, you have to think about the pictures that you are going to have on your brochure. You could collect the pictures that you want to be showed in your brochure, but if you don’t have any, your design company will provide you with an image archive, in order for you to choose the ones that you think that are more convenient or the ones that represent your product or company.

It is a bit complicated choosing pictures for your brochure, not only because of its convenience, but also because of its quality. Sometimes some clients give to the design companies some pictures that they want to be showed and their brochure, but they’re not even good picture since they don’t have a good quality. For example, a client hires a design company to make a brochure, and he wants to have a picture of his company on it. The picture that the client has isn’t in good conditions to be in that brochure, so that is why the design company will consider taken a picture of that company by a professional. We could say that choosing an image or picture is more complicated than writing the text for the brochure.

The text and images have to be ready before starting with the brochure design. Always try to listen the recommendations that are being suggested to you, because they will help you to optimize your brochure design.

How to design a brochure?

Planning a brochure depends on the decisions that you and your design company have to take. But this plan is not only based on those decisions but also in the relationship that your company and your design company have.

That means that you will be hiring other company, and be delegating to them something that your company can’t be in charge of doing, like how to choose a paper for your brochure, even though the printing house is in charge of getting the paper and not the design company.

Although the design company is the one that decides how to work, its method and its development, this will be done together with you. The result of this relationship will be an effective and professional work.

Before starting, the design company will listen your ideas, and then they will be suggesting you some recommendations. You could take or not those recommendations.

In this section we want to highlight the importance of having a good and professional relationship with your design company. A constant and dynamic relation, that could allows you not to be in charge of your brochure all the time. The brochure has several qualifications that require having this type of relation. For example, choosing a type of paper for the brochure won’t be probably a problem, but is has to be chosen before continuing with the designing work, and as we mentioned in the section called Advertising Aspect, it has to be chosen depending on it convenience. But the brochure concept is something that would be more difficult, and that couldn’t be solved in the first interview. It is difficult because it is hard to explain in a few words how you want your brochure to be. At least you could express what your brochure intention is, and some basic morphological aspects.

The graphic designers will start working on your brochure, after finishing they will be getting in touch with you to show you your brochure, to see if it satisfies your expectations. They will call you once they have some brochure samples, and you will choose the one that fits your needs.

Having a good relationship with your design company is important because it will give efficient and effective results.

Why do you need a brochure?

The brochure is used by major companies and small companies in the process of growing.

If you’re the owner of a small company, and your want to start creating a prestigious corporate image, a brochure is the best option for you.

It’s a very affordable investment, and it will be giving you benefits as well as helping you on your advertising campaign.

Your company will be seen as a consolidated one if it has a well designed brochure. When you have a well done brochure you could be sure that it will be transmitting an integrity sensation of your company, even though people tend to think that having a brochure is something expensive and only for big companies.

It is right to say that planning a brochure requires time and some staff members. And the small companies don’t have time, not even a staff for deciding how to do a brochure, because of this they decide to hire a company that is specialized in brochure design. This company will be in charge of doing everything that is related to the brochure, they will make a marketing investigation, decide the brochure format and design it. When they have finished, they will call their client. And the client will decide if the brochure will be changed or not. If there is any change that the client would like to make on the design, the format or the size, that will be showed to the design company

The brochure will be finished once the client’s preferences and needs have been satisfied. And it will improve your profits once it is distributed.

In conclusion, the brochure could be used by major and smalls companies that want to improve their corporate image. The brochure will be benefiting their company at the lower cost.

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