When it’s about getting a brochure or pamphlet designed for a product or service you offer, the fact whether you are an established businessman or a birding entrepreneur hardly makes a difference. In both the cases, you got to think it through and give specific guidelines – from design to content to entire look & feel. Or else you’ll be stuck with a generic design that would remind your customers of someone else’s brochure.

What we are trying to explain here is that you got to take things in control, give precise outlines, express what you visualise, only then the designer would work towards an output worthy of your product.

Below we have provided ten such guidelines/tips you should follow while getting a brochure or any other business material designed.

1. Explain your product, your customer

Considering you a smart individual, we believe you have hired a reliable agency, and therefore we are skipping mentioning it as a tip but if you don’t have budget for an agency then worry not we have perfect solution for you as well. Moving straight to our first point, that’s to brief the designer about your product, its features, positive aspects etc. this will help him a lot in creating a product-specific design outline. Secondly, always discuss your target audience, designers often put themselves in customer’s shoes to create a compelling customer-oriented design. This profiling will help designer to choose right colors, images & overall theme.

2. Clean content with minimum fancy words

Like with the designer, make sure to brief the content writer as well about the customer segment you are trying to appeal and what your product is all about and how it’s different. Knowing the readers will help writer frame better content that’s easily understandable and adds value to your product. Also, try avoiding the use of unnecessary fancy words that either force the reader to skip the line altogether or use a dictionary. Check out below example!

3. Remember it’s not a book

Remember it’s a brochure, a piece of paper with multiple folds or a booklet with few pages, created to pass information about a product or service. Therefore, no need to add unnecessary details just for the sake of adding more pages. It would only cause customers losing interest halfway through the brochure, not getting to know your product entirely. After all, it’s not worth losing a prospective customer to a lengthy brochure! Instead use images and graphics as they not only grab readers attention but also help creating your brand perception.

4. Limit font variation

Designers often go crazy with font usage, using multiple fonts for heading, subheadings, content along with some special mentions here-and-there. Make it clear well in advance not to use more than three fonts in the brochure or pamphlet. Also, if you have a font specially developed or used on your business material, inform the designer about the same and give mandates about its usage. Fonts can make or break a brochure!

5. Add appropriate images

People like images more than text, it’s a universal fact. Therefore, source the designer with as many product images as you can, and if you fall short on original pictures, ask the designer to source some good quality stock images with the least amount of stock quotient.

6. Design complimenting your brand identity

Your brochure design, its look and feel all should compliment your business identity or the product it represents. Say, for example, if yours is a real estate firm launching a one of a kind premium residential project, then the brochure should be equally rich in quality. On the other hand, if its pamphlet for a charity event, it should not look like you have poured in a hell lot of money in designing and printing. Make sure your brand logo stands out so that people can remember your brand clearly.

7. Don’t forget to include a call to action

Everything will go in vain if you miss adding a call to action in the layout. Why? Well, it’s because it doesn’t matter how bang on your brochure or pamphlet is, a little push or motivation is always required to bring the prospective customer to the checkout counter. Below Christmas sale brochure clearly says to visit their store and by adding word today it created urgency!

8. Equal focus on contact info

Don’t just pour all your energy and efforts in discussing the design and content with the designer. Pay same attention as to how the contact information will be displayed because once with the customer only that info will guide him back to you. Also, make it a point to include all the social media channels you are active on, it’ll help engage the new-age client better. Dedicating one fold to contact is best. On that page talk only about how to reach you.

9. Make it worth keeping

If you offer quality products, your brochure should reflect the same. Never compromise on the quality be it of the paper, print, binding, images, content, font or even the colour. We are not suggesting to go overboard, but least maintain a minimum standard that can be judged by analysing your client base.

10. Consider DIY yes you heard it right!

This one surely is a piece of advice we think you have never encountered before, well unless you are a designer yourself. With the evident fantastic DIY designing websites, you don’t need a whole bunch of designing degree to be a designer. DIY will not only help you save money but also make a brochure as per your need. Also, getting designs of the quality these templates offer you is gonna charge you a lot. You can create a unique brochure using online tools such as Canva that source you with thousands of free templates, allow you to upload images, enter text, change colour-scheme, add background and what not. Also, who better than you understand the product/service better, making you perfect for the job.

Similarly, you can create a pamphlet or other business material using free online tools; the output looks no less than that designed by a professional designer as these templates are designed by professionals. You can tweak them as little or as much as you want by adding your brand color, logos, custom text etc. The best part, you save a whole lot of money!

That’s all the essential tips you need to get a bang-on brochure/pamphlet designed. Remember the more interest you’ll take in the process (while giving adequate designing freedom), better are your chances to get a unique brochure. Also, don’t forget to give self-designing a try, you never know to discover a hidden talent. It’s an excellent tip for startups with a budget crunch to create a brochure without compromising the design quality.

We wish you get a brochure-worthy of your product.