How to get your literature designed
Checklist
- Decide what literature you need or will need in future: for example, business cards, letterhead and other stationery and brochures.
- Decide what image you want your literature to convey: for example, classic, fresh, value for money and so on.
- Look at other companies' literature for inspiration, and to consider how you can make your material stand out.
- For each individual piece of literature (eg a brochure), decide what the literature's objective is as the basis for producing the content.
- Consider how the literature will be used for example, whether it will be in a rack (and only the top showing) or sent by email or posted (so that weight matters).
- Take into account any legal requirements (eg company details on letterhead stationery).
- Establish budgets for design and production.
- Discuss your requirements with a graphic designer and provide a clear brief.
- Establish corporate design rules such as colours, typefaces and logos.
- Apply corporate design rules consistently across your literature to build a strong image and brand, and to reduce design costs.
- Aim for a clean look, with plenty of white space and selective emphasis of key points.
- Minimise potential updating costs, for example, avoid including prices (which may change) in a brochure intended to have a long life.
- Assess the impact and overall effect of the completed designs - whether they catch the eye and convey the right image - and proof all documents before producing the final be it in print or online.
Cardinal rules
Do:
- invest in a professional graphic designer
- design consistently across all your literature
Don't:
- include information that quickly becomes obsolete
- produce designs which will entail excessive production costs
- print or publish online before checking the proofs
