The Tricky Layout of Tri Fold Brochures

Some panels will be hidden from view in your layout as you try to design the various panels for brochure printing. Thus, if you are new to brochure printing and want to understand how to make sense of your layouts, here are some tips.

• Knowing your panels – Of course, initially you must know all about your panels. If you unfold tri-fold brochures, you should more or less see that you will have two main faces, the front and the back. Each face will have three panels. The front face where the panels fold over will constitute your inner panels, while the back face will be your outer panels, which includes the cover panel and the back panel. Keep this in mind as you design the layout for both faces.

• Knowing the “reading path” of readers – Now, to effectively design the layout, you must know the reading path that most readers typically follow. This path comes first to the cover panel at the back face of your design, and then towards the inner panels at the front face of your layout. Readers will of course read panels from top to bottom, completing one panel at a time from left to right. The reading path will end at the back face of the design in the center panel, which is basically the back part.

• The best places for images – There are a few ideal places where images are best placed. Of course, the cover e is where your main image must always be. Since this is the one to be seen first by readers, a big image at the top part of the cover panel is almost mandatory. When it comes to the inner panels though, you can pretty much place your images wherever you want. The only rule is to balance these locations out so that you do not have an area that is saturated with images, while another area is just a big block of text. Try to space the images evenly to have a nice balanced layout.

• Using templates to make it easier – If you still find it difficult to layout, I find it best to use a brochure template. A template will have the proper guidelines and layout reminders that should help you build a good layout without too much trouble. Moreover, most printers will appreciate the use of templates since they are very compatible with most of the software and machinery that they will be using. The only problem with using templates though is that you will be limiting your creativity to a certain extent.

Great! I hope these tips can help you get around the tricky problem of designing a layout for tri-fold brochures. Just try to be patient and visualize how it is printed and folded to get a better picture of what really is happening. Good Luck!

Katie Marcus writes about the brochure printing technologies used in the production of business brochures.