Brochures are a great way for a company to further brand their company. Whether a company is trying to sell something, inform their target audience of their services, or simply serving an educational purpose it’s important that you understand the objectives.

You should always take some time in the initial stages to clarify some of the projects objectives. This will help in the design process.

Size
Size is an important factor. It not only gives you an exact space to work with but it will help you if you are involved in the process of obtaining an estimate from a printer. Printers often will ask for the flat size of the piece, meaning what size it is before any folds.

Color
Clarifying color decisions early on will not only help in the design process but will make a big difference in printing prices. For instance, using 2 color spot/PMS is cheaper than 4-color CMYK.

Folds
There are different types of folds for brochures. It’s important to know the way the brochure will fold prior to designing so that you can create a unified piece. You can consult with the printer on this.

Bleeds & Margins
Most brochures do have bleeds incorporated into the design.  A bleed basically extends the graphical elements past the document size/trim size so that when the piece is being trimmed there are no white lines around the document size.

Fonts
For print projects, you should use postscript or Open type fonts. Open type fonts are mac and pc compatible.

Graphic file types
The main file formats that are used for print are TIFF and EPS. Both file formats, regardless of whether the graphic is bitmap or vector, should be in CMYK color mode. Bitmap images should be saved at 300 dpi unless specified otherwise. TIFF file format should be used for photographs or bitmap images. EPS file format should be used for vector graphics.

In designing a PowerPoint deck, a little planning is crucial.

Create an outline.

A little planning goes a long way. Most presentations are written in PowerPoint without rhyme or reason. The reason why you are putting up slides is to expand what you are going to say to your audience. You should at least know what you are going to say and then think of how to visualize it.

Create a script that has a good storytelling sequence: it has a beginning, middle, and end. Make your audience appreciate each slide but interested to find out what’s next; and better still, always leave them wanting more.

One topic at a time.

Just one new point is displayed at any given moment. Bullet points can be revealed one at a time as you reach them. Charts can be put on the next slide to be referenced when you get to the data the chart displays. You must control the flow of information so that you and your audience are attuned to one another.

Skip the paragraphs.

A Powerpoint presentation is meant to reinforce your points, and it is not meant to bore your audience with long text and complicating charts. If you really need to dispense the information, print them separately and distribute them to the audience if need be, but don’t display them into the screen and read it from the screen.

Visual design is important.

Avoid dressing up your pages with cheesy effects. It is a big no-no. Focus instead on simple design basics like using uncluttered sans-serif fonts for easy reading. Use dark background sparingly. The preferred style should be black text and white background. Use coloured text only to highlight headlines or subheadlines and limit to maximum 2 colours for the whole presentation. Use center alignment of text sparingly. The preferred alignment is left. Lastly, avoid clutter like a plague. Keep to 1 or 2 photo images per page, that’s it. Don’t ever use those hideous cliparts. They don’t have any place in your professional presentation – unless you want to be funny on a certain point.

Since 2015, I noticed that there are unusual number of requests and inquiries for infographic design projects. The requests are still pouring in. Why infographic design? the reasons are simple: visual description of text is easier to understand than plain text. It also adds up to the readers’ interest in your information.

It’s impossible to comprehend complex data easily if we only use words or texts. Information graphics or infographics are visual explanation of data and information. The graphics are excellent visual tools for explaining huge amounts of information where complex data needs to be explained clearly. Viewers tend to ignore text and focus on easily digestible visuals.

Infographic design is one of the most challenging types of graphic design because the creation process can be quite intensive. Researching data is a very lengthy procedure that takes time to obtain correct data. After that, the designer must be able to create a strong visual impact that precisely displays the information in way that is easy to understand, rational and blend with the overall design.