It may be tempting, especially when budgets are tight, to publish or distribute literature solely online, but statistics show that readers are likely to spend less time reading it when compared to a printed brochure. It’s common sense, really. In your no doubt overloaded email in-box, how many times have you skipped passed an e-communication (perhaps intending to come back to it later) never to return? And if you get as far as opening that attachment, you’re far more likely to skim-read it, flicking through the pages rather than properly digesting the content. It’s so disposable.

In such an environment, printed brochures stand out as a mechanism for getting across your message in a carefully controlled fashion. You can regulate the amount of information which appears on each page, control the feel of the document in the recipient’s hands, ensure that colours and images are properly reproduced without relying on someone else’s low-grade monitor or tiny smartphone screen.

That isn’t to say that electronic brochures don’t have their place, especially for what we would call ‘go to’ literature – that is, where your audience has a reason to actually go and find your brochure (which of course is easier to do online), perhaps because you’ve steered them there via an advert, or a link on your website. A big factor will also be the age of your audience: the younger the target, the more tuned in they’ll be to reading digitally. Electronic versions of brochures can also be enhanced, by embedding videos, animations, links and other interactivity.

So before we start designing your brochure, we’d ask you to think carefully about whether printed or online is more appropriate. The most common answer is ‘both’,

which isn’t a problem because a good design can be subtly adapted to suit both formats, helping you to get the max out of your creative budget.

Now, what do you need your brochure to actually do for your business? Is it to showcase a particular product or service (or a whole range of them), to introduce your company as a whole, or maybe it’s purely an information piece for customers who have already made a purchase? There are lots of possibilities here, but we need to keep this objective front of mind, as it’s going to influence the way that the brochure is executed in terms of format, extent and – above all – creative approach.

We’ll need to talk to you about setting the right tone, where the content is coming from (and how much of it there is), how long the brochure is going to be around and – significantly – exactly who it is aimed at. What similar brochures have you produced for the same market in the past? How successful have they been, and what have your competitors been up to?

Only once we’ve answered these – and many other – questions, can we get down to the business of concepts and design. Depending on what’s appropriate, we can get as creative as you like at this stage! Likewise – depending on what fits the brief and what you are able to supply us – we can give you as much or as little support as you need when it comes to photography and art direction, copywriting / editing and illustration.

Regardless of the brief, there are some things you can be sure of: we’ll be bringing to the table a wealth of experience in typography, page layout and artwork. And we’ll remain reliable and responsive every step of the way.