Custom brochures are already not, what they once were. Nowadays custom brochure printing is synonymous with customizing a set of mass produced templates rather than doing an original design.
If you have been doing this kind of custom brochure printing all the time, then this is your wake up call. Truly customized brochures are unique works of printed material that come right from your own imagination. You will not get anything as special from templates, so it is actually not recommended to use templates unless you are really starved for time.
To help you start out in the road to original and custom brochures, here are a few steps that you should follow.
1. Dump your templates – Of course, the first logical step is to dump your templates. Using them will only limit your originality and make your custom brochures look very boring and “common.” This is something really that you must actively avoid since your real goal is to make a custom brochure right? So tell your templates goodbye. You can look at them for inspiration for a few times, but you should not use it, and definitely, you must not imitate them.
2. Build things from the ground up - Next, with your limitations eliminated, you can now get to work creating your custom brochure design. You should aim to build everything from the ground up. This not only teaches you the basics of brochure designs, you can also get the fundamental concepts on why brochures are needed to be designed a certain way because if the folds. Build each major element and panel from scratch and see how it goes first before comparing it with others. In time, you should find your own unique style that is the perfect foundation for a custom brochure.
3. Add elements that are unique to your project – Also, since you are making a custom brochure, you must always have a few custom elements that are unique for your own project. This can be a big design element like embossed logos or metallic inks or it can also be a catchy tag line or “incredible offer.” Adding this unique elements make your brochures more distinct, marking them against the other brochures out there, which is a truly custom trait.
4. Unique distribution – A final but less known way to “customize” your brochures is to distribute them in a very special way. For example, you can have your brochures attached to balloons or they can be put in expensive looking envelopes. While these design elements are outside the brochure itself, it is still part of the whole design package. This unique design element outside the main brochure layout can still be very effective since it adds an extra eye catching appeal that can make people curious about the content of your brochure. If you have a clever and artistic enough distribution method, you can surpass what most brochures do and be a very special and custom brochure.
Great! With that, you should be well on your way to creating your truly customized brochures. There are no templates involved here, just pure and uninterrupted originality that is distinct from the rest.
Katie Marcus writes about
custom brochures or
custom brochure printing.
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