Archive for the 'brochure design northamptonshire' Category

Graphic Design Tips for Non Designers by Roskell Design Northamptonshire

Published by Freelance graphic designer based near Kettering in Northamptonshire on May 29, 2008 in brochure design northamptonshire, freelance graphic design and graphic design northamptonshire. 0 Comments

If you need to design something inhouse for your company here are a few tips that can help with your graphic design

Colour palette
Keep your basic colour palette to a minimum perhaps stick to two key colours, which will help to give your design a cohesive feel. If you need inspiration for a colour palette try colour lovers

Roskell design near Kettering and Wellingborough in Northamptonshire suggests choosing a limited palette of colours for your design

Fonts
Try to stick again to a couple of fonts for your design and use different weights within that font family. For example you could choose a sans serif font (a font without the curly bits such as Arial or Helvetica) for your main heading and then your sub headings also in the same typeface but smaller and perhaps a different weight (bold). For your body copy (main text) you could use a serif font (with curly end bits such as Palatino or Times). For a main text size I would suggest anywhere around 9 or 10pt (larger if your target audience is mature adults/young children or people with poor sight)

Text Readability
If you are producing a brochure or newsletter you ideally don’t want the line width of your text to be too long, or too short as it becomes difficult to read. If your line length looks too long think about putting your text into columns which makes it more readable.

Images
As the old saying, a picture can tell a thousand words, adding images to your graphic design can enhance the look and create interest. There are many low cost and free options for finding imagery. If possible avoid clip art as it will tend to make your design look amateurish.

morgue file is ideal for finding free images for your graphic design

Grids
In general designs look better when everything lines up. Try to make sure elements of your design line up with other elements. If you are using several columns of text try and make the bottom lines of text line up to give a nice tidy finish. You can achieve this by adding in pictures to make your text fall to the right length. Pick up any magazine or brochure design you can find and you will see how the designer has lined things up.

Inspiration and Reference
If you have not designed much before start collecting brochures and magazines that you think are well designed. Look at why the design works, does it use strong typography, perhaps a large photo? Try and apply some of these elements to your design.

Brochure Design Terminology by Roskell Design Northamptonshire

Published by Freelance graphic designer based near Kettering in Northamptonshire on May 28, 2008 in brochure design northamptonshire and freelance graphic design. 0 Comments

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.

Roskell Design based near Kettering and Wellingborough, Northamptonshire shows a 4 page brochure design

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

Common options for brochure design folds by Roskell Design, near Kettering and Wellingborough, Northamptonshire

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.

Brochure Design Case Study by Roskell Design, Northamptonshire

Published by Freelance graphic designer based near Kettering in Northamptonshire on April 8, 2008 in brochure design northamptonshire, design case studies, freelance graphic design and graphic design northamptonshire. 0 Comments

Last year I was asked to design a direct mail brochure, DL leaflet, poster and presentation for Perkz Ltd based in Northamptonshire. Perkz offers an online employee benefits scheme, this allows business owners to offer an incentive/discount scheme to their employees to help encourage loyalty.

My brief from Perkz was to initially design the look for an A5 brochure, this style would be then followed through to the other elements. Perks wanted to look trustworthy/serious, but also fresh, modern and approachable (corporate handshakes etc were definitely a direction to avoid).

Stage 1: I began the design work as I usually do by looking at the websites of Perkz competitors, and then starting to brainstorm and sketch out ideas. I generally start looking at cover options first to get an overall feel for the design. Amongst other ideas I thought about the concept of a box full of goodies/the excitement of opening a parcel, employees standing at the end of a rainbow (waiting for the pot of gold) and the use of typography with a face and think bubble.

brochure design sketchs created by Roskell Design a freelance graphic designer based near Kettering and Wellingborough in Northamptonshire.

Stage 2: The next stage was to develop my preferred brochure design sketches into visuals created on the computer. Again I started with the cover designs and then when I was happy with these designed a sample inside spread. I presented cover designs and sample spreads for the different options to the client. The covers are shown below.

brochure cover designs by Roskell freelance graphic designer Kettering, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire

Stage 3: The client chose their preferred brochure design option and with a few minor amendments this option was then artworked, you can see the result below.

A5 brochure design by Roskell Design, a freelance design company based near Kettering in Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire

Stage 4: I then followed through this style to the design of the DL leaflet, poster design and powerpoint presentation.

Posters, leaflets and a presentation were then designed by Roskell Design based near Kettering, Northamptonshire, near Bedfordshire.

David Tedford, Managing Director of Perkz, Northamptonshire, was very happy with the design work and kindly gave me this testimonial - “I was delighted with the work that Tara produced for us. It met our needs perfectly in terms helping us stand out from the competition and giving a more professional look to our literature whilst at the same time not compromising on our desire to remain a fun, fresh-faced organisation. Tara’s work has resulted in our most successful direct mail campaign to date. Tara was a joy to work with and I hope that we will work again soon.”