A Written Snapshot Of
Producing A Printed Brochure

Contributed by Elaine Landau

If you have ever heard the quote, "You only have one chance to make a good first impression," you understand that when promoting your business, you strive to produce marketing pieces that will intrigue and impress prospective clients.

Budget constraints do not have to limit your creativity. In fact, sometimes money constraints can be catalysts for thinking out of the box. For example, if your budget does not allow for four-color printing, you may wish to create a dramatic black and white piece on glossy stock. With an imaginative use of typefaces and an overall design that screams class, your brochure will serve its purpose splendidly.

So, what is the purpose of your brochure?
Before thinking about content and design, the purpose of the piece must be determined. Indeed, that may dictate the brochure size. It certainly impacts the copy and design. For example, a brochure that is an image piece may require a lot of original photography, which needs to be considered when formulating a budget. Perhaps the purpose of the brochure is to introduce a new product. Unfortunately, that product is not done and there are no prototypes to photograph; yet your deadline is just around the corner. That’s when emotional copy may replace description copy. The writer needs to describe how this new product will make their lives more fulfilling, more exciting, more everything. If a picture or illustration of the product is not available, perhaps the brochure should focus on the selling points and benefits of the product. For example, before and after photos are always attention-getters and the consumer never has to see the actual product.

When the purpose of the brochure is narrowed down and restrictions recognized and addressed, the next step is the physical production of the brochure.

Do it yourself.
Before presenting your brochure idea to your creative team, make a basic brochure of your own. Perhaps the graphics consist of stick people, boxes to indicate photo placement, and Greek type to indicate copy blocks. If you have a basic computer education, you would do well to explore an Adobe® Photoshop® online tutorial for Adobe Photoshop tips. With some basic Internet training, you may wish to log on and look at design sites that display their printed pieces online. It is always good to be inspired by the creativity of others. You may pick up some neat ideas about typeface usage, the amount of copy to use, and decide whether photography is a better option than artist renderings. The more ideas you have, the more creative options you can explore.

Your homemade brochure is simply a starting point for the creative process. There are a lot of decisions to be made.

Printing Choices
If your brochure is a full-color piece, you have two basic choices in printing.

a. Offset printing can produce large quantities of superb quality pieces using a four-color printing process. The process involves ink being spread on a metal plate with etched images, transferred to an interim surface and then pressed onto paper stock. The actual printing is considered inexpensive, but the set-up charges can be high. Take that into consideration when following a budget.

b. Laser or digital printing also produces large quantities of good quality pieces by using a laser beam to produce an image. Smaller printing jobs therefore are done on an inkjet printer or on a low-volume laser printer. Essentially, there are no set-up fees associated with this process.

Paper Choices
Have you ever picked up a magazine with a beautiful color picture on the front and back? The photos pop out because of the glossy stock and the heavy weight of the stock makes you feel as if you have gotten your money’s worth.

There’s a very good chance that the body of the magazine was printed on less expensive, lightweight stock. But the cover stock did its job. It looked great, felt great, and made someone want to open it up.

With a brochure, chances are you will want the same impressive stock throughout. Even though many printers recommend heavyweight, coated, or glossy paper, the design of the brochure may dictate which paper stock is truly the correct choice. If the brochure is designed with deep folds, some coated stock can actually crack. That will certainly detract from the vibrant upscale look you are trying to achieve.

Fold This
Many successful brochures have ingenious designs with fun folding options. Perhaps it feeds into the human desire to keep looking, unfolding, to try and find a treasure of sorts. Basic folding options include the single fold, the tri fold, and the accordion fold. The creative team and the printer need to clearly communicate how the end product will fold. Before saying okay to a final run, you should ask the printer to produce an example of your brochure using the correct stock, folded as the printer understands it should be folded. If the sample brochure does not fold correctly, or the stock cracks, it is time to make some changes so the end result is what you truly want.

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