planning and designing a corporate brochure
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- kelpie
hello all.
I have a new job on which is vexing me as I've not done any work like this in years and years. I'm rusty beyond comprehension and stuck on pre-design stages, let alone hitting the blank page hell.
I have to design a brochure for a company based on info on their website (its pretty standard stuff, services, about us, environmental policy, management profiles, testimonials etc) and I'm wondering if any of you good print bods out there could just give me som general advice on how you start a project like this, how you pre visualise it, set it up, break down a mass of content into a series of logical sections and pages etc etc.
Just any tips really that might help this go a bit smoother. If I can get into this it might help me get my mojo back for this kind of thing, cos believe it or not, there was a time when I was quite talented :-/
- forcetwelve0
start with a page plan - just simple thumbnails on paper. plan out your sections - work out how many pages, if you have room for nice DPS or not... this will inform you of what your grid needs to be - ie text heavy, or image heavy.
will you break the sections up with their own page? etc etc
- cheers f12 - does this apply if you have no page count/budget and are doing it spec? I think this is part of the problemkelpie
- forcetwelve0
if you dont have page count, i'd just start laying the content in to a 3 column grid, and see how it goes. you may find that each article is shorter than expected, so you could make the pages a little more indulgent, or vice versa.
- Fariska0
- Breakdown the content in sections
- See roughly how many pages are there
- Being print prolly you need to have pages in multiple of 4 or 8
- According to the content define a grid which may be more or less text heavy (as f12 said).
- Lay down the content on the grid and define the image areas.
- work out where the corporate elements need to be.
- ian0
What might help is if you break up the content as they have done on the website. If, for example, they have 10 sections on the site, think about giving each one of those sections either a page or double page spread. This way you can start to get a rough idea of content and page count. Then as forcetwelve says you can start flowing in the text in a three column grid (or whatever your preference is) and you'll start to see how the text flows and if your page count will go up or down.
Think about the quantity you need, this could dictate final print specs (ie if its 100 or so they might just want digital prints, if its 500 or more it'll work out more cost effective to go litho) this in turn will dictate what kind of paper stock you can spec and if you can do any specials (metallics, foils, varnishes etc) which can really elevate a rather simple brochure into something quite lovely to hold.
And don't be afraid to pitch something expensive along with a more cost effective solution as in here's your simple brochure but this one is a little more expensive but is more apt for your message and will really set you apart from your competitors.
But most of all, have fun with it Kelpie, it sounds like a project you want to get your teeth into, so go for it you mad bastard!
- mistermik0
sub-contract and bask in the glory.
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Actually some wise words above. Can you lay your hands on any brochure design books? Always a good palce to start esp when rusty.
- http://www.amazon.co…skii
- ...some new editions are available alsoskii
- max_prophet0
Common sense most importantly. Think about what makes something interesting and readable. Consider pace and how to 'spice up' areas of very dry content. Then analyse your content and squeeze it in so that it suits you, casually discarding all the boring crap with little or no regard to your client, who you hate.
- sorry, I got bored half way throughmax_prophet
- maybe you can pull out the da font collection for this job?max_prophet
- hahahakelpie
- kelpie0
thanks for the above guys, much appreciated.
- ian0
These are a good range of books, though the 'basics' part is a bit of a put off. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basics-D…
Also try these:
http://www.rotovision.com/descri…
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Grap…
- mirrorball0
I'll do it for yah, £25 per hr ok for yah?
- kelpie0
hmmm, that would be about £18 more than I work out as getting on a good week, I think I'll soldier on ;)
- your doing this for £7 an hour?mirrorball
- well when you take in unpaid overtime, it can work out that way actually. oh trials of the low paidkelpie
- mistermik0
how far up is alba? is it 3rd world? or you lying?
- its not quite that bad, I was joking. not too far off though. Alba is scotland btw, mik, and you can guess where raintown is if you looked out the window at lunchtimekelpie
- ...if you looked out the window at lunchtime ;)kelpie
- aye sorry i meant how far from glasgow / edinburgh - maybe ply your skills down here?mistermik
- haha was chucking it. Size of golfballsmistermik
- Alba - I am dull as fuck - thought it was a backwards town. Some would say it was boom boommistermik