got stuck in a rut with a design for a brochure for my nonprofit, one of the departments, and was trying to convince the contact in that dept we’re working with that we need to bring their brochure out of the box, make it more visually stunning, that right now in their brochure we’re speaking about us, listing, in dry, sterile bullet points, the services we provide, but instead it would be much better if we walked the brochure reader thru a narrative, showed them, in documentary form, exactly what we can do for them, how we can help, and write it from the reader’s point of view, frame it in the language of the people we want to reach. too often, companies go on and on about themselves, thinking that’s what they need to do in their advertising and marketing collateral, but what you need to concentrate on instead is who you want to reach, focus on their mindset, their needs. thankfully, the specific contact for that department is good at writing like that, so i think there might be potential.

so i went online to try to find stunning examples of brochure design, and then came across this link. exactly what i was looking for.

that website, though looking incredibly spammy, also has another web page listing a bunch of links about brochure design, mostly of a “how to” manner. here are links from that list i found helpful:

Corporate Brochures: Are Yours Helping or Hurting Your Company?

Your Brochure Should Not Attempt to be a comprehensive technical manual detailing all your product specs. It should not be a price sheet listing special sales items and the like. These are sales sheets and have completely different requirements in look, design, and purpose. When companies try to combine these functions in a one piece all things to all people brochure, they often end up with a confusing, disorganized mess. You can be absolutely certain that if your brochure is difficult to read, it won’t be. This could reflect a confused company to a prospect. Remember K.I.S.S.? An acceptable combination of both types is often seen in a presentation folder. One pocket holds your corporate brochure, the other pocket holds special deals, sales sheets, price lists and the like.

and as i said to the contact for who i am redesigning her dept’s brochure:

Basically, listing absolutely everything, all details in a tiny brochure: that’s the impulse of say, many directors and small business owners, but it’s not the right way to go about it. A brochure like yours needs to be a teaser, is supposed to represent your dept and get them interested. You try to cram too much info into that thing, and you lose your ability to make it dynamic, to have it capture people’s attention.

Another option, if you want to have something listing out absolutely every single one of your services, is have a companion piece of collateral, maybe a flyer, or a double-sided sheet of paper the same size as the brochure, in quality paper, that lists out in very easy to understand form all the services we offer. Look at your presentation folder as an entire package..

But to cram all that into one brochure is a bit much. A story talking instead of only the major points would be much better, with a huge emphasis on photos and experiences. A good brochure is kinda like a good first date. You don’t tell your date absolutely EVERYthing about you, instead you give them just enough to make them interested, enough to make them want to see you again, find out more.

Designing a Professional Brochure:

First and foremost is understanding your objective. You know more about your business or subject than any rational human will ever care to know. Yes, your business is great, you have 50 great products, a great guarantee, a wonderful service department, a glossy coat, and fresh breath. None of these matter because they have nothing to do with the viewer. Create your ultimate objective around your viewer.
Bad Goal: Provide information about our downtown district.
Good Goal: Bring a visitor downtown to one of the eclectic restaurants.

Emotional Objective
Learning leads the viewer to the next step. No matter what we like to think about ourselves, we take action because we feel. Why should they care? How do you want the view to emotionally respond?

Behavior Objective
You’ve fed them knowledge and you’ve made them care. Now tell them exactly what you want them to do with these pent up emotions. Name Step 1., Step 2.,. if you have to, but give them explicit directions as to how they should proceed.

Persistent Value
Information alone is not enough. Give the viewer a reason to keep the brochure because it contains something they will use later. This can be a map, a useful list, contact information, coupons, or even a recipe. Marketing is about repetition, so give yourself your viewer one more opportunity to read your brochure.

it also says to ask this among other very important questions:

Can viewers understand the intent of the brochure in under ten seconds?

Brochure Design Is Keeping Small Business Owners Down: Forget the tri-fold brochure, educate your prospects with a marketing kit that tells your entire story and more.

i honestly don’t understand why trifold brochures exist. they’re really not the most effective way to get information or a message across. i’d be interested to find out the reason for the popularity of the trifold brochure.

Trifold Brochure Writing Tips:

The bifold, tripanel brochure, often given the misnomer “trifold”, is constructed by folding a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper twice to create 3 panels on each side. It is the brochure type most commonly used by small business because it can be mailed in a standard #10 envelope.

a-ha, ask and ye shall receive. so, given we don’t mail this dept’s brochures out in #10 envelopes, then it doesn’t need to be a trifold brochure.

When preparing your text, keep it short and sweet. The reader should be able to grasp the main points by simply glancing through the piece. If you bury your messages in dense text, the reader may simply decide that it will be too much work to read your brochure and just throw it away.

Speak directly to the potential customer.
“We help you”

Brochure Design by Rob Kirby. this is a good article, written in easy to understand english, about the need to take the time to think of your brochure as a billboard, short amount of time to catch someone’s attention. then, once you catch their attention and open the brochure, you have to make them want to stay long enough to read it, make it worth it for them.

What is your call to action? Do you want them to walk into your store, call your 800 number, log on to your website, refer a friend, etc? If your brochure doesn’t make it clear what you want your audience to do and provide a way they can take the next step, it will be useless. You need to create what I call an Actionable Invitation.

what i find challenging about designing these kinds of things for a nonprofit, that thing which we are “selling” is our services, our goal is to have people who need our help to find out about us, call us, email us, however is easiest for them, so we can help them. that’s kind of an awesome thing to try to sell.