Creative Brochure and Flyer Design Ideas

Flyers and brochures are meant to attract attention like visual magnets, and with uncommon use of design elements you can put the power of the print medium to work for both you and your clients. Get the attention you want to achieve for your clients, by following a few creative tips and guidelines for your marketing brochures and flyers.

Bold is beautiful

Don't be shy about using bold colors, shapes, pictures and fonts, because when used in marketing flyers and brochures, they all play an important part of the graphic scheme. Using super-sized quotation marks around quotes can be emphatic but elegant, for example. Choosing one font or color for headlines and another for other content, for instance, breaks up the page in an interesting way, and it also places attention where you want it most. You can begin a phrase with a gigantic letter or word, and it acts like a photograph or other graphic to make the overall design jump off the page. Take advantage of strong, rich colors juxtaposed against lighter or contrasting shades for immediate depth and dimension.

Stand your audience on its head

Sometimes to get someone's attention with your marketing flyer or brochure, you can simply rotate the design or place it on the page in an asymmetrical fashion. We are so accustomed to seeing things in a conventional linear format that a slight tweaking of the layout can generate dramatic results. For instance, if you have a long rectangular-shaped brochure, consider running the design of a tag line or brand name vertically, or have that text run horizontally but place the logo in a vertical fashion.

Use an unusual size for your flyers

Another great trick - especially for flyers - is to think outside the box and use nontraditional dimensions. Most flyers are printed on typical letter-size or legal-size sheets of paper, but you can have your flyer cut to a slightly different length or width to make them stand apart from the crowd. Printers such as PsPrint offer custom flyer sizes, so that as you think outside the box you can also order sizes - such as 3.5 inches by 6.5 inches, for instance - tailored to your unique designs. Just be sure to create your design grid with sufficient bleed margins. Keep in mind that while it may appear to be more cost effective to print on standard-size paper and then cut it afterwards, online printers such as PsPrint allow designers to print custom sizes for the price of a standard printed piece. This allows designers to take advantage of high-quality gloss and matte paper stocks along with professional printing capabilities. In other words, it pays - in more ways than one - to work with a professional printer when outlining your design ideas.

Bigger is better

When it comes to producing award-winning flyers, size matters. Choose larger sizes - such as 11 inches by 17 inches, or even 11 inches by 25.5 inches - to really grab attention in a big way. By using mega-sized flyers you can often put conventional-sized flyers into the shadows and stand tall when it counts the most, and it helps give you the competitive edge.

Flyers to die for

One other simple way to get dynamite results is to use die-cut flyers. When you open up your flyers in this way you also open yourself up to thousands of cool and creative possibilities. You can incorporate cut-out designs in a variety of shapes, sizes and configurations to make your flyers a cut above the rest. Planning at this stage is easy and can be fun - plus it doesn't cost anything. Take your time to be creative and pay attention to details, so you don't have any expensive regrets and inconvenient delays down the line.