If you are not used to commissioning brochure design there is some brochure design terminology which might be of help to you.

1. NUMBER OF PAGES
This refers to the number of sides to a brochure rather than the number of leaves. So for example the diagram below shows a 4 page A4 brochure design created by folding a single sheet of A3 paper in half.

2. TYPES OF BROCHURE BINDING
Brochures are mostly commonly bound in one of two ways

i) Saddle Stitch
This is when a brochure is stapled through the middle and can be used on brochures of up to 80 pages (depending on the paper thickness). Pages have to be in multiples of 4.

ii) Perfect Binding
This is when the left edges of the paper are glued and is ideal for larger brochures.

3. COMMON BROCHURE DESIGN FOLDS
Some possible folds suitable for brochure design are shown below. You can find further brochure design fold options here

4. BROCHURE DESIGN FORMATS
Some of the most commonly used brochure design formats are:

DL (99mm x 210mm)
For example a 6 page DL brochure will be a brochure created from a piece of A4 paper that has been folded into thirds on its long side.

A4 (210mm x 297mm)
Very commonly used for business brochure designs.

A5 (148.5mm x 210mm)
more economical than an A4 for postage cost if the brochure is going to be mailed out.

210 square (210mm x 210mm)
Sometimes used as an alternative to an A4 brochure design to stand out from standard A4 brochures.

5. DIE CUTTING ON BROCHURE DESIGN
A die cut is essentially when a brochure is created with a shape other than the usual straight lines which can be made with a guillotine. For example you could cut a circle out of the front page of a brochure to reveal an image on the page below or you could create a wavey instead of straight edge on some of the brochure sides.

6. BROCHURE LAMINATION
Sometimes the covers of brochures are laminated (clear film applied) in order to help keep them clean for longer. This is ideal if the brochures are going to be stored for a long time or handled a lot. Lamination is available in matt or gloss.

7. SPOT UV VARNISH ON PARTS OF A BROCHURE
If you have something on your brochure that you really want to stand out you could matt laminate the whole page/cover then pick out one item, for example a logo with a spot UV varnish. This will make the logo look glossy when the rest of the page is matt.