Brochure Design Tips for Business

How to Make Your Brochures Stand Out

Printed brochures are a sure-fire way to promote your business and reach new customers. Brochures serve up key information about a new product or service, provide insight into your company and give customers something tangible to see, feel and take with them. Many people think of trifold brochures as the standard, but, in fact, brochures come in many different shapes and sizes, including sell sheets, product guides, flyers, menus, newsletters and spec sheets.

So why would anyone cut corners on something so important? When designing and printing brochures, consider these tips for a successful project:

Brochure Sizes

There are four standard brochure sizes: 8.5 x 11, 8.5 x 14, 11 x 17, and 11 x 25.5. Choose a size that matches the quantity of information you want to get across. People react better to clutter free designs so don’t try to crowd your information and images into too small of a space.

Consider the staying power of the brochure when choosing a size. An 11 x 25.5 large fold-out full color brochure might serve as a mini product catalog and be kept at hand for years. An 11 x 17 half-folded provides four 8.5 x 11 “pages” and works well for a complicated product description which requires numerous images, graphs and text. Both fit nicely into a presentation folder for a professional look.

Choose an 8.5 x 11 trifold or half-fold brochure for trade shows, mailers, take-out menus, event promos, or any other type of sales brochure when you don’t need the additional space.

Brochure Printing

Commercial printers offer a wide array of choices when it comes to paper and finishing for your brochures. To create “richness”, consider heavier weight paper and special effects like die-cuts or spot varnish to highlight images on the cover. If you plan to mail your brochure, it will pay to include coating. This gives the brochure a glossy finish and makes it more scuff resistant for protection as it moves through the mail stream.

Brochure Templates for Mailing

When creating a brochure design that will be mailed, always take into account how the piece will be mailed. Use our U.S. mail layout guides in the brochure size of your choice. These brochure templates incorporate USPS specific guidelines relating to tabbing, dimensional sizes, location and size of the address panel and postage. All may affect which mail class can be used and the cost of the mailing. Our experts are here to help you with your brochure mailing projects or find additional information online with our Mailing Services Guide.

Even if you don’t plan to mail your brochure initially, you may want to plan ahead for the possibility and include a mailing panel in your design. Our full service commercial printing and mailing service can always print extra brochures and hold them for future potential mailings.

Brochures are one of the most versatile pieces in your advertising or marketing arsenal: sell sheets, product launches, flyers, menus, newsletters or spec sheets – a “brochure” can handle it all.

Printing with Pantone Colors and Spot Color Inks

Color creates the first impression of any print. Even the lack of color can be a bold statement. Because of that, you should put thought into how you want colors to impact your brand through print.

The biggest choice you will need to make when it comes to ink is whether to use spot colors (Pantone Matching System®) or CMYK process printing. Understanding the difference between the two “color systems” and when you should use each is the key to making it an easy choice.

CMYK vs Pantone: Printing Processes Demystified

When preparing an image for printing in CMYK, the electronic file is separated into four primary colors: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The image is recreated using screen tints made up of small dots that are applied at different angles to the four process colors. The separated color images are then transferred to four different printing plates on the press. The colors are then printed one after the other to recreate the original image. The CMYK colors are manufactured colors and are not mixed by the end user. This method can be referred to as 4 color, full-color or standard process printing.

The PMS system uses pre-determined, published color formulas to create a large number of ink colors. PMS stands for Pantone Matching System®, and is a standardized color reproduction system. Similar to the paint swatch guides you find at your favorite paint store, the pantone color chart contains thousands of color swatches created from a palette of basic colors. Each color has a ‘PMS’ number assigned to it. These numbers are used to identify the exact color needed. Using PMS inks is called spot color printing.

Get it Right: Benefits and Drawbacks of Printing with Pantone

Color is very subjective, which is why the Pantone Matching System® works so well. It takes all the guesswork out of color identification. Every computer monitor is different, every printer is different. By standardizing the colors, manufacturers and customers in different locations can all refer to the Pantone system to make sure colors match. It is used by many printers and graphic artists to deliver reliable, reproducible colors to their customers. The ink manufacturers who create the base color inks are strictly licensed by Pantone for color accuracy.

Why PMS Isn’t Always King

Even though Pantone is a great option in certain cases, it doesn’t always make sense to incorporate it into your printing project. Using spot colors is usually more expensive than process inks due to the extra production costs involved in “washing up” and changing out the ink in the press, particularly when using more than one or two PMS colors depending on the printer’s manufacturing equipment and processes. Since CMYK process printing uses the same base colors all the time, it’s a more cost-effective solution.

When Spot Colors Should Reign Supreme

There are certain times in commercial printing when your colors need to be exact. That’s when you should consider using Pantone colors, either on their own or added to standard four-color process printing. Here are a few examples: