When we talk about creative branding design you might be forgiven for thinking this is an exclusively digital domain, but there is still plenty of merit in physical, hard copy and in certain situations there is no substitute for printed materials.
Physical, printed material can last longer and be more memorable than something that’s gone in a click or a scroll, and when face-to-face with your target market, printed material can still convey your message as quickly as a social media post or a website link, if it’s done well. But equally, if done badly, it can be tossed straight in the nearest bin without even scanning the headline message.
Here are some top tips for making leaflets, flyers, posters, brochures, stationery, menus, magazines, business cards and invites stand out, and how you can do your bit for keeping the traditional industry of print media in business.
Clear message
Whether you are promoting an event, a special offer, a new product, a new seasonal range or just your name and contact details, you need to make the message clear. There is no space or time for clutter, mixed messages or making people guess. Make it obvious what message you are trying to convey with your printed material, and you have half a chance of people reading on.
Easy to read
Following on from this, make your printed materials easy to read. Break up the text with headers and sub-headers and make sure there’s plenty of white space on the page. This is the equivalent of allowing people to breathe when bombarding them with info. Don’t be afraid to include a lot of information if it is necessary and beneficial, but avoid huge blocks of text, and make sure people get the message from a headline, and then they will read on later if they want to.
Quality
The quality of your printed material should reflect the quality of your product or service and your brand. Invest in the right quality of card or paper, image quality and printing quality. You should research and understand the basics of image resolution and printing DPIs, because what looks like a good image on screen won’t necessarily be the same in print, and by that time it’s too late.
Branding
Make sure printed material is consistent with the brand messaging you employ online and on packaging design. It helps your target market identify and connect with your product and ensures your printed materials meet their expectations.
Creative
Be creative in your design and try to make printed materials unique in some way. This could be the texture or finish of the paper, the shape of the material or the font or images used. If what you are promoting has a special brand design, like a logo or metallic typography or something, use the same feature on your printed material.
Size matters
You need to match the size of your printed material with the expectations of that medium. You wouldn’t have a product brochure the size of a business card, and you wouldn’t have a business card the size of a poster. That’s more obvious, of course, and with some mediums such as leaflets, flyers and invitations, the lines are a bit more blurred. Essentially, in relation to size, make sure you can fit in the information that you need to convey and that the message you need to make comes across, while also allowing your creative side to flourish.
Approval
Checking for typos and printing errors when you have the finished results in your hand is a waste of time, and you need to ensure you set up some kind of final approval process. Check your copy time and time again before anything goes to the printers, but make sure you have an opportunity to approve a final proof before anything is printed, because after that you can’t go back, and a sloppy mistake is there for all to see forever.
Call-to-action
Use your printed material to offer an incentive to your customers or potential customers, and you will definitely catch their attention. This could be a discount on production of the flyer, a free download of a digital brochure or a free gift for the first 50 people who turn up at a product launch in 30 minutes’ time. When you are handing out printed materials you have to think ‘what’s to stop them throwing this away?’ Give people a chance to connect, and they might just hang on to it.
Great design
A printed material design agency knows what they are doing. They are professionals for a reason and will have a proven track record of designing printed materials that are successful in making a connection and selling whatever it is intended to sell. So use their expertise, and this greatly enhances the likelihood that your printed materials will pop.
Contact Rebus Design & Branding Agency for excellence in printed materials design
The Rebus Design & Branding Agency has a successful recent history of partnering with clients in many different industry sectors and producing printed materials that convey a message and help a product or service stand out from the crowd. Get in touch today.