Designing a Corporate Brochure

Corporate brochures are a staple in the marketing toolset of many companies. They are used effectively in many industries and fields to communicate business goals, products and services. Because of their prevalence, corporate brochures are a very common desktop publishing project.

In corporate brochure design, many factors can determine the effectiveness of a piece. From a marketing standpoint, consider these three main requirements when designing a brochure: 1) Communicating corporate brand; 2) Revealing industry or market position; and 3) Addressing specific project goals. Read on to discover how to incorporate these goals into your next corporate brochure design project.

One important consideration in effective corporate brochure design is communicating corporate brand. Because a corporate brochure is used in tandem with many other marketing pieces, it is important that it reflects the overall look and feel of the company's existing image. When designing a brochure for a corporate client, familiarize yourself with how the company has presented itself in the past, what other printed pieces are in place, and how the current logo is used.

To communicate the corporate brand in a brochure desktop publishing project, consider the colors and fonts used in the logo brand image. By utilizing the same colors and fonts, viewers will make a subtle association with the brand. Sometimes a portion of a logo icon or image can be expanded and co-opted as a repetitive design element providing continuity.

Consider design devices such as using elements reduced into a repeating pattern or oversized into large background imagery as ways to reinforce the brand image in a subtle way. These types of design choices can provide valuable associations with the corporate brand and ensure the corporate brochure serves larger marketing goals.

Another consideration for an effective corporate brochure design is the effort to "position" a company in it's applicable industry and market area. Regardless of the specific message of a particular brochure, it should offer the recipient a broader understanding of the general industry or field of expertise of the company producing the brochure. It should provide information about the specific market or consumer audience the company serves.

Including a general company mission statement or statement of services in the brochure can serve this purpose. Also, photographs related to the specific industry or services and products provided can provide the viewer with this context. Even if your brochure desktop publishing project has a very specific and narrow purpose, it is still important to include general corporate information in the design. This allows recipients who don't know the company to have a better understanding of its industry and market position.

Finally, when designing a corporate brochure, the specific goals of the piece are paramount. Whether the brochure design is required to highlight a specific service, launch a product, inform about an event, offer an overview of services or elicit a specific customer response, the layout, graphics and verbiage must serve that specific purpose.

Be sure to review overall expectations with your desktop publishing client. Find out how they plan to use the brochure, how they anticipate delivering it to viewers, who they see as the target audience and what specific marketing goals they would like to meet. The answers to these questions can serve as a kind of checklist for creating an effective corporate brochure design.

When a corporate brochure design is next on your list of desktop publishing projects, make sure your solution addresses the key requirements of communicating corporate brant, revealing industry and market position and addressing specific project goals.