If you invest in brochure printing long enough
and are creating new designs every season, it is quite possible that
you develop a habit of having them appear mechanical. Even with custom
brochure printing where you do not use templates, it is still easy to
go for the old or usual way of printing with its nice clean steps and
comfortable (but perhaps boring) pre-set design.
This process may be easy and logical for you as the brochure designer,
but for a reader having read a lot of other color brochures it is a
great to be so cold and “mass produced”. In this guide, we will teach
you not to appear as mechanical as this in your brochure printing to
avoid “turning off” customers. There are simple five strategies that
you can use to achieve this.
• Be a person and engage the reader – A good thing to do first is to
change the tone of your brochures. You may not know it, but all
marketing brochures nowadays sound the same. They are full of pride and
happiness about themselves and want you to spend some money to partake
of it. This “company-centric” approach may impress people initially,
but if there is no personal touch to the message, it will sound very
cold and commercial.
In times like this when you and all of your rivals are doing the same,
it pays to be different and personal with your color brochure message.
Always aim to convey what your readers may be interested in. Tell them
what they may want or need, and then present yourself as someone to
help them get that. If you appear to care about your readers, then you
will avoid sounding cold and profit-driven just like some companies out
there.
• Have your images look alive and tell a tale – Besides being personal
with your messages, your brochure images may also need attention. While
most companies are content at just displaying their products, or
showing nice services, in time this will all look the same for most
readers.
To prevent yourself from bowing to this collective similarity, your
images should be made to look alive and tell a story. Images must speak
to your brochure readers, showing emotion and a feeling of want and
need. If you present your image this way, you will surely look more
dynamic and alive as a business.
• Use a different font – Next, on the design note, you can also avoid
looking boring and mechanical like other brochures by simply using a
different font. Most people who print brochures are not creative with
their fonts. They want to be safe and utilitarian with their fonts
since most of the time you have fonts that stand the test of marketing
time.
However, eventually the fonts that you may have chosen can become too
common. You readers might even think they have read your brochures
before even if they did not because of the same font design. So if you
can try to use different fonts when possible to appear new and fresh
each season.
• Explore new layouts – Also to avoid looking unoriginal and mass
produced in your brochure designs you may want to try and explore new
layouts. New configurations of text and images can be a nice change of
pace that can make your color brochures more alive and different. By
constantly updating, your designs every time you print new brochures
you effectively break the curse of looking the same each season.
• Explore new folds – Finally, like new layouts, you may also want to
explore new ways of folding your brochure. Trying out different folds
and designs for each printing batch makes your brochure printing
campaign more interesting and dynamic. If done well, you should have
new brochures with interesting designs that can attract readers easily.
Hopefully these tips will help you a lot in managing your brochures
making them look animated and not as mechanical as most other brochures
of this day. Try to look for new ways and open your imagination to
innovative ideas. With a little luck and determination, you should have
no trouble making beautiful and “non-mechanical” sounding marketing
brochures.
Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of the developments in brochure printing or custom brochure printing.