It's timely that we're doing this project in class – I happened to have a need to design a tri-fold brochure for myself this weekend! And I churned it out fairly quickly on Friday night in order to get copies made to take with me to the Buffalo Small Press Book Fair on Saturday. I just opened my art studio to offer my own workshops and classes, and wanted to take the opportunity to reach out to the hundreds of people attending the fair.
Since I had almost zero time to get the project done, I knew that I was going to have to do a photocopied black and white version only this time around. I had to make sure to make good use of the space I had, and make sure that I stuck within the margins (one of the margins to work on my home printer actually has to be .5", by the way!), as usual. No bleed for this design!
I kept it simple, almost all type. I ended up designing a quick logotype for my venture on the fly – Amy Greenan Creative – admittedly inspired by Milton Glaser's redesigned identity mark. My tagline is "Art Accessible for All", and so the three A's are lined up and greyed out to echo the alliteration.
Milton Glaser's studio logo
Another thing that I played with was the folding. Many tri-fold brochures have two pages folding in toward the center, but I opted for a z-fold. I'll bring in examples to class on Tuesday to show you how it works, but the name evokes the appearance – I'd think that you can guess. :)
The first thing I did was make a dummy of the fold, and decide what information I wanted to appear where. Even just simply numbering the pages and then labeling them correspondingly in InDesign helps to keep track of what has to go where.
Some of the written information I already had ready, like my biographical information. The rest I had to come up with – contact information, course offerings, a list of where I've taught. I always proofread as I go, but I always proofread one last time on-screen before doing a test print (and ALWAYS do a test print!!!), and then again once I have a printout. It's easier sometimes to catch typos on paper, I think. Always train your eye to look at things carefully. If proofreading is not your forte, by the way, have a friend who is good at it take a look for you! Typos are a big no-no! ("I'm a bad speller" or whatever excuse you have for typos is no excuse.) Sure, it happens even with your best efforts (and even when you have an editorial team reviewing your work, like I did at my last job), but do everything you can to avoid it.
Type-wise, I try to keep it simple and consistent as always. Everyone has their favorite typefaces to work with, and I am no exception. I used two of my favorites, Gotham (the sans-serif) and Mrs. Eaves (an historically-inspired serif face, just lovely!). I stuck with those two only, but both have a fairly large family of fonts to work with, so I have variations to play with. This creates a document that has a very unified feel to it.
You'll also notice, perhaps, that I am careful to align blocks of text an image. I group things. I stick with a general grid, more or less. Structure is so important. If you're placing things randomly, all willy-nilly, chances are your design will feel like it's going to fall apart. That's not to say that you always have to follow a grid – rules are made to broken, sure! But really know your stuff before you try doing that.
Without further adieu, here's the result of my few hours' worth of work. Is it perfect? No, and I will surely continue developing it and have it professionally printed soon. But, I think it is a good start and certainly served its purpose at the fair – I gave out quite a number of brochures and was able to get my message out to many folks! Now we'll see if I get results – that is, if I start having people sign up for classes with me. Fingers crossed!
