How to Design a Brochure in InDesign: A Step-by-Step Guide

Contrary to popular belief, InDesign is not just for designing books and magazines. It is the ONLY tool to use for these, but it can be used to design so much more. I love using InDesign for anything that doesn’t require me to draw a vector. Business cards? Check. Flyers? Check. Brand Guidelines? Check. Brochures? Double check! Why is InDesign my design tool of choice? Because it is so versatile for layouts and can handle heavy images without bogging down my computer. It’s an amazing tool to use for various types of layouts used in marketing materials. Using InDesign to create brochures can empower you to create visually stunning designs. From structuring layouts to choosing the perfect color scheme, there are some basic design decisions to ensure that your brochure design make a lasting impact. With InDesign as your trusted tool, you'll discover a world of possibilities in shaping your brand's narrative through compelling designs and in this post, I’m going to walk you through how to design a brochure in InDesign. So, where do we start?

 THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF BROCHURES

Let’s start by knowing what kind of brochure you’re wanting to design. There are different types out there so knowing what kind is best suited for your client’s needs will help you select the right one.

Examples of the different types of brochures you can design. These types are taken from UPrinting.

The most popular ones are probably the trifold or the z-fold. We’ve all seen those. But there are other versatile ones out there and if you want to be creative in getting your client’s message across, you might want to try one of these. How I usually start by deciding which option will be the best is by looking at the copy and images provided by the client. This helps me visualize how I need to place everything and it also allows me to see how much space I’m going to need.

 I recently had a client that wanted me to sum up all their cosmetic procedures into one brochure so that their potential clients could have a brief overview of the different types of cosmetic procedures that they offered. This brochure was going to be included in a packet as a summation that clients could read without having to go on-line and search through their website. That’s a lot of information! So, when I started looking at the different options, I needed something that was going to give me a lot of real estate for copy.

One thing to keep in mind is that not all vendors offer the same paper sizes or brochure options, so if you’re needing a brochure that allows for a lot of information, be sure to check what sizes are offered before you decide on a layout.

THE IMPORTANCE OF USING INDESIGN FOR BROCHURE DESIGN

As I mentioned before, InDesign is a great tool to use because it can handle heavy images. Other elements to keep in mind when designing is that InDesign offers you the opportunity to set up margins, background text lines (called baseline grid) for the even placement of body text, bleed for those images or colored backgrounds, etc. And you know what is one thing that InDesign can do that Illustrator can’t? Set up paragraph and character styles! When you’re placing a lot of text, you want the ease of setting it up your copy with the appropriate font styles just once. When you have multiple small paragraphs, being able to select a paragraph style for each paragraph with just one click is so much easier than having to highlight every single one and select the font, size, and spacing over and over again.

Using Paragraph Styles in InDesign is a quick way to make any changes across the board without having to click through all of the text one by one.

 KEY ELEMENTS OF A WELL-DESIGNED BROCHURE

When designing a brochure, there are several key elements that you have to think about. The most important element is your copy. Though you won’t be writing copy for your client, you want to make sure good, convincing copy is included. Nothing falls flat than copy that isn’t well written and thought out. But other important elements to consider are colors, fonts, images and the overall layout.

Your client should have brand standards in place that will help you put your brochure together. But should they not have any, you’re going to have to make some pretty important decisions that will make everything not only look cohesive, but stunning as well.

COLOR

Let’s start with color. You’ve probably heard that there is a psychology tied to the color wheel and when you’re desiging a brochure for your client, you want to make sure you select a color palette that works well with their messaging. Say you’re desiging a brochure for a wellness spa. What colors go well with that brand? Cool or neutral colors. Calming colors. So you will probably want to go with some light blues and greens, maybe even greys. These all give a subconscious “calming” message. You wouldn’t want to use a red or purple. Those colors are quite vibrant and are the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.

FONTS (TYPOGRAPHY)

A lot can be said for selecting the right font for your project. Let’s continue to think about this wellness spa client. What kinds of fonts would you use in your brochure? You want something that is clean, sophisticated and legible. Selecting a nice serif or sans serif font (and even mixing and matching) can work beautifully. You wouldn’t want to use a script font anywhere unless you’re only highlighting a word, maybe two. Remember, your brochure has to be classic and legible.  Using a script font should be used sparingly and most definitely not within a body of text.

IMAGES

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of selecting the right images. In this wellness spa project, you want to select images that are calming, serene, and relaxing. You can find some pretty amazing free images on websites such as Pexels or Unsplash. Make sure you double check licensing before you use them. You also want to make sure your images are set to the correct DPI. Nothing fails more than an image that is not set to the correct DPI. If it’s pixelated or blurry when enlarged, you haven’t set up the image correctly (we’ll talk more about this later).

OVERALL LAYOUT

The overall layout design should be thought out and intentional. You have to put yourself in the place of your client’s clients. Pretend YOU’RE the customer shopping for a wellness spa. What kinds of things are you looking for? What types of things would convince you to try out Wellness Spa A over Wellness Spa B? And you have to think about the layout. When you have a brochure in your hand, it’s usually folded and closed. It’s not until you open it that a whole new world of information is given to you. You have to think about that when you lay it out. If your client has a lot of copy, you want to break some of that up with images or pull quotes. You don’t want to bombard their clients’ eyes with so much text heavy information because then they won’t read it. You want to have a balance between that written information and graphic information and it you want your eye to dance along.

PLANNING YOUR BROCHURE

So I’ve mentioned knowing what size you’re going to use for your brochure and which vendor will provide the size you’re needing as important steps in planning your brochure. And I also touched on thinking about your layout. So let’s get started.

 In this scenario, we’re going to move forward with creating a brochure for a wellness spa. Our client operates a high end, luxuriously styled boutique, offering curated spa packages, luxurious skincare rituals and holistic wellness journeys, just to name a few. We have a word mark logo to work with, a soothing and sophisticated color palette and simple yet elegant copy we need to place. We need to select the appropriate images and do the layout.

Our copy isn’t too text heavy so now I’m going to think about what kind of brochure will work, along with the size. I’m going to go with a traditional trifold in an (unfolded) 8.5” x 11” format. If you refer back to the image of the different brochure types and look at the trifold, you’ll see that there is a front panel and when you open it, there is another panel. That tells me that not only is the front of the brochure important, but this inside panel is important as well because it is one of the first three places where we will place any important information that any potential client will see. This could be considered the second or third most important panel as the back panel is also visually important.

Once the panels are opened and the brochure is fully extended, this is where a lot of the copy will go because it will flow continuously from left to right. Closing the brochure back up, you have a back panel that is also important. This is where you will put pertinent information such as contact information (address, telephone numbers) and social media. You also want to have something catchy on the back panel as well. Think of it as your closing statement piece.

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO CREATING A BROCHURE IN INDESIGN

The first thing you want to do is get the design template from your vendor. Most places have their templates on-line that you can download to use. Included in these templates are important marks that you need to be aware of such as trim line, safe zone, and fold.

 Since I’ll be designing an 8.5” x 11” brochure, I’ll set that up as a new document and make sure to give it 1/8” bleed. Don’t forget the bleed! Next, I’ll import that template into my background in the Parent Pages and on its own layer. I’ll then lock it in place. You can choose to leave the background visible if you want, but if you’re like me, all of those lines are distracting. So what I normally do is pull some guide lines up to the “safe zone” lines and “fold” lines so at least I know the limits of my design and then I can turn off the template layer. This will be  much cleanter because next I’m going to insert my baseline grid and columns and this will definitely be just way too much distraction for me.

In this image, I have imported the template for a tri-fold brochure in an 8 ½” x 11” format from the vendor that I will be using. Though it would seem natural to extend the margins to the “safe line” of the template in InDesign”, we still have to think about leaving some white space (breathing room). Next, I usually insert a 12 column grid throughout to give me more flexibility in the placement of my images or graphic elements.

Next, I’ll want to set up my background grid and columns. This will help me lay everything out evenly and make sure everything fits just as it’s supposed to. I have this article where I talk in depth about how to set up your baseline grid and columns in InDesign. Feel free to check it out if you’re not familiar with how to do that and this should help you in learning how to design a brochure in InDesign.

Once we have our baseline grid and columns set up, we can start designing. It doesn’t really matter which order you work in so long as know the order things will be laid out. I usually like to start with the front of my brochure since it’s the most important.

 FRONT OF BROCHURE

For the front of the brochure, the two most important elements you should consider is an image that will grab your client’s attention, followed by your client’s logo. Remember, this is the FIRST thing their potential clients will see so you’ll need to make this part the most important.

Other things to consider is if you client has a tag line, a catchy phrase or an important line in their mission statement that stand out. You might want to consider including one of these as well. Don’t make it cluttered. There must be hierarchy and balance so if there’s enough space and it works with the image you’ve selected, go for it!

BACK OF BROCHURE

I think this part is almost as important as the front of the brochure. Why? What do people normally do when they grab a brochure? They look at the front and then flip it to the back. So the back of the brochure has to be eye catchy as well. Here is where I might have a nice background image as the backdrop. Or if my brochure has important relevant information that is a quick summary, a mission statement (not just one line, but perhaps the whole thing if it’s not too wordy) or bullet points, I might put it on the reverse. Whatever you decide will work, make those decisions. But the things that must go on the reverse are the name of the company (if it’s a word mark logo, that will work), contact information (address, phone numbers and emails) and social media handles. Your brochure should have these and this is the best place to insert them.

 THE FIRST INSIDE PANEL OF BROCHURE

This part of the brochure is super important as well because after the client has seen the front, flipped it to the back, they are now ready to OPEN the brochure and this is the very first thing they will see that will introduce them to what the brochure is all about. This is the panel where you’ll need to start to explain to the client what they are about to experience and holding their attention at this point, is very important.

INSIDE THE BROCHURE

This is the part of the brochure where you start to explain and try to sell the product to the client. Here is where the majority of your copy will go and this is where that background grid and columns will come in handy.

INCORPORATING IMAGES AND GRAPHICS IN YOUR BROCHURE

Images and/or graphics play two important roles in brochures. One, they are visual aids to whatever it is you’re trying to sell or promote. Two, they are helpful to breakup the monotony of text heavy information. When incorporating these, it’s important to think about their placement. You want to place these items where they will aid with the flow of information and not just in random places that don’t make any sense. Say you have four columns of nothing but information. You could place a graphic element before the third colmun of information to help break up that monontony. Or perhaps you have a lot of information that fits in Column 1 but Column 2 is short. You could place a graphic element at the bottom of Column 2 to help fill it in. Whatever you decide to do, make sure your graphic element isn’t distrupting the flow of information. You don’t want the reader to have to do optical acrobats to figure out where the text continues.

Here are just a few examples of many of where you can place your graphic elements in a brochure using InDesign. This helps to break up the monotony of text heavy copy and will give the reader a visual break from having to read a lot of information.

 And if you don’t have any images that you can incorporate, you can fill a background in with the brand colors and insert a pull quote or important text from your brochure that you want to highlight.

All of the important copy is placed in the interior of the brochure. It’s important to think about flow and how the reader will read this. Break up categories with different fonts but make sure the fonts selected work together and aren’t distracting (see “Typography Tips for Brochure Design” below).

 

TYPOGRAPHY TIPS FOR BROCHURE DESIGN

If your client doesn’t have any brand elements in place (this should include typography selection) than you will have to make an appropriate typography selection. The two most important things to remember when selecting the typography for this brochure is 1) hierarchy and 2) legibility. In hierarchy, it’s important that your reader’s eye follow along to what is important. You wouldn’t want to use paragraph text for your titles or subtitles because then your reader’s eye can’t distinguish the different categories of your text. Remember, you don’t want to bog down the reader’s eye with so much textual information. That only encourages them NOT to read the information. Instead, you want to offer the reader bite size portions of information and the best way to do this is to separate bodies of text into small paragraphs. These small paragraphs can surely be separated into categories and therefore, the use of titles or subtitles comes in handy. You want these to be a different font than your body text, but you also want to select a font that works well with your body text font.

Secondly, legibility is so important here. You must consider the size of your font so a reader can easily read the information without straining their eyes. There is no one “go to” font size you should use here as all fonts work differently. But for text heavy items, starting out at 10 points is a usually a good reference point.

Another thing to remember is that your font size will always look smaller on your screen that it will in print so always run a test print of your brochure before you decide on what size you’re going to use. As an example, a lot of people use 12 points in their Word documents because 12 points looks comfortable on your screen. But guess what happens when you print it out? That text is huge. Keep that in mind.

ADDING COLOR SCHEMES AND BRAND ELEMENTS

Again, look at your client’s brand elements and see what color palettes they have selected for use throughout. If they don’t have this, then you will also have to make a color palette selection that is appropriate to use with your brochure. In our example of our wellness spa client, we’re going to select light/cool blues, greens and greys. If there was branding in place, your client might have some iconography they could use to tie everything together. If they don’t have that, you can select some simple icons to incorporate into your brochure design. Some cool places to select these are NounProject, Freepik, or Graphic Pear.

If you’re finding that you must select a color palette yourself, make sure that you’re selecting CMYK colors and not RGB. Remember, CMYK is for print whereas RGB is for screens.

PRINTING CONSIDERATIONS FOR YOUR INDESIGN BROCHURE

The first most obvious consideration is to make sure your images or background colors —if placed on the edges of your brochure—have bleed. You want to consider 1/8” bleed all around your brochure to be on the safe side. Your vendor, however, may require more, so make sure you take those measurements into consideration.

Make sure your images are at an effective ppi of 300. This is different than your actual ppi. You actual ppi could be at 300 but that doesn’t mean that your effective ppi will be that. Why is this important? Because when you’ve inserted your image into this brochure, you’re not inserting it at 100% as-is. You’ve adjusted that image to make it fit nicely inside that image box. So, double check that your effective ppi is at 300 so that your images will come out as they should when they are sent off to print.

When you send your final file off to print, you will send it off as a PDF. You don’t need to include any cut lines on this as you’re using their template. Most places will have a place on their website where, once you upload your PDF, you can see how it will look once it’s printed. Also, most places offer to send you an electronic PDF proof before you approve your design for print. I ALWAYS select this option. Sometimes, printers have to make slight adjustments in pre-press and you want to make sure that those adjustments, though slight, still give you the end result you’re wanting.

CONCLUSION AND FINAL TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL BROCHURE DESIGN

I cannot emphasize enough how much easier it is for me to design a brochure in InDesign. I see a lot of people using Illustrator for this and it’s probably because they’re not familiar with how to use InDesign. But being able to turn on my baseline grid in the background and adjust the leading to whatever size I need for my text makes it so much easier for me to place my copy and insert my graphic elements. Using evenly spaced columns throughout helps me to make sure my copy isn’t too cramped or too far spaced.

To have a successful brochure design, it’s all about putting yourself in the shoes of your client and experiencing what they will experience. Make sure all of the information is clear and concise, legible and with the appropriate hierarchy. Imagine having it in your hands and what will draw you to open up this brochure to read what’s inside.

And lastly, if you can, run a test print on your office printer to make sure everything looks the way it should. Make sure that your print size is legible, your information flows well, and make sure your folds are correct. Remember, you’ll be looking at the information on your screen, which is all linear. Make sure that when it’s printed and folded, everything looks as it should, the color pops, images are crisp, and the text flows well.

The final version of our brochure design is complete. This walk through is an easy way of knowing how to design a brochure in InDesign.