MARKETING ADVISOR. A great marketing campaign is never out of fashion ISSUE TWENTY FOUR

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1 MARKETING Your logo here ADVISOR A great marketing campaign is never out of fashion ISSUE TWENTY FOUR The best-dressed corporate brochure Type that s more than an accessory Outerwear for paper

2 The Corporate Brochure Modern Make-Over Critics say corporate brochures are glossy, brag-and-boast budget suckers that virtually no one reads. Under the old rules of corporate brochure design, that was often true. Today, however, the corporate brochure has evolved from a stand-alone, one-way promotional piece into an integrated, interactive conversation starter.

3 It's easy to see how today's corporate brochure has evolved from expensive and showy to useful and integrated. photos istockphoto.com Start with a strategy. To update your corporate brochure, start with a strategy. What is the purpose? Who is your target audience? If you re introducing a prospect to your company, a corporate brochure saves time that you might otherwise spend reciting your corporate history and mission. It is an ideal forum to give readers a taste of the full spectrum of your capabilities. Perhaps most importantly, a corporate brochure lends credibility to your organization. Anyone can print business cards and letterhead with a minimal investment, but a corporate brochure sends the message that you are a real company with a past, present and future. Engage the reader right away. If you don t engage the reader right off the bat, your brochure and your investment in design and printing is going straight into the trash bin. The cover is your first opportunity to capture the reader s interest. Think beyond a picture of your product line and a corporate logo. Grab attention with an exciting photo or bold graphic, a splash of unexpected color and a customized font. Choose a unique size or shape of paper, a substantial paper stock and a special finish. Be conversational. Inside the brochure, headlines and subheadings should give even the casual reader enough substance to understand your broad message and pique interest in the content that follows. Most marketers write corporate brochures to inform and instruct much like a technical manual or report. But wouldn t it be more enjoyable to read the latest bestseller? Lead with your very best information, and let your story unfold in a clear, natural, conversational way. You can t tell your readers everything about your company in one brochure. Selectively use factual information to make your piece both interesting and believable. Include a call to action. You have drawn your customers in. You ve informed them about your company and your products. Now what? There s only one correct ending. Include a call to action. While selling is not the primary purpose of a corporate brochure, why miss the opportunity? Give the reader an exclusive invitation, a free special report or a perforated card to request more information about your specific products and services. Prominently display your address, phone number, general address and Web site on the back cover to make contacting you easy. Continue the conversation by directing the reader to social media, like Twitter, Facebook or your corporate blog. Companies tend to limit distribution of corporate brochures because of the cost involved, but a well-designed, professionally printed brochure can be worth a great deal more than its cost. The real expense comes from printing the first copy. You can order thousands of additional copies for comparatively little money. Get them in the hands of your employees, vendors, distributors, customers and prospects and see where the power of an effective corporate brochure takes you. A well-dressed brochure doesn t have to be a budget sucker. 4

4 You Know the Type The Right Type Treatment will Have You Dressed for Success In this age of,, and other system fonts, it s easy to take type for granted. We ve all seen documents that use more fonts per square inch than legibility, let alone aesthetics, can handle, resulting in a garish font-o-rama.

5 photos istockphoto.com What creators of these documents often neglect is a respect for type, and the understanding that good typography equals good communication. Gutenberg had it easy: he had only one font to choose from. Today, we have thousands upon thousands of typefaces. It s an embarrassment of riches, and we ve all seen embarrassing design. Type Is Like Clothing Type often obeys the law of engineering, form follows function. That is, a typeface should be appropriate to what the typesetter designed it to do. At the same time, that form needs to be aesthetically pleasing. The basis of good typographic design is balancing the logistic requirements of the document with what is pleasing and attractive. It s like clothing. What we wear should be appropriate to the weather as well as the context (formal versus casual), but also be attractive or at the very least inconspicuous. And just as with clothing, some fonts look dated and scream 1970s! the typographic equivalent of a plaid leisure suit. Typefaces, like anything else, go in and out of fashion. While it s tempting to think that no one really pays close attention to fonts, there is often an unconscious visceral reaction to type, not unlike the unconscious reactions that we have to color combinations, or, indeed, clothing. Understanding how font choice affects the perception and reception of a document is one of the crucial elements to good design, and you should not treat it lightly. Every font tells a story is it the story you and your client want to tell? Or do you want people to say, Your mother dresses you funny? If we look at the history of typography, typographers designed almost all of the classic fonts for specific purposes. Venetian book printer, Aldus Manutius invented italic type not because he wanted to stress everything, but because it was the best way to fit all of a book s text in a pocket edition. The British newspaper The Times commissioned the creation of Times Roman after font designer Stanley Morison had criticized the paper for its poor typography. Bell Gothic AT&T designed a popular sans serif face, Bell Gothic, in 1938 for its telephone directories. Its goal? Legibility and economy of page space, two vital elements of a good phone book. Frutiger Charles de Gaulle International Airport developed Frutiger, another popular sans serif for airport signage. The goal was for travelers to quickly and easily read it from a distance. The History of Type Closer to home, Highway Gothic, the official font of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration it s the typeface used on highway signage spawned the creation of Interstate, which typographers modified to use at smaller sizes, and perhaps in colors other than white on green. Some typefaces outlive the technology for which typographers created them. People who have never even seen a typewriter often use Courier, designed for IBM typewriters. It still evokes a home made feel, even though few homes actually have typewriters. Caslon Some typefaces catch on and become The Beatles of typefaces. Caslon, a classic face if ever there was one, first appeared in 1734 and was an immediate hit. The founding fathers of the United States even used it for the Declaration of Independence. (Imagine how ineffective that document would have been if it had been set in Comic Sans.) It s said that playwright George Bernard Shaw insisted that all his plays be set in Caslon. 6

6 Coated Papers an extra layer of pizazz

7 When you look through paper samples, one of the first things you probably notice is whether the sample is coated or uncoated. Coated papers feel smooth to the touch because they have a coating of clay and other substances. This coating causes the paper to reflect light more and absorb ink less than uncoated papers. Many different types of coated papers exist. To make them, the paper mill starts with an uncoated piece of paper and applies different types of coatings to give the paper different qualities. We call the uncoated stock the base sheet. We refer to the thinnest type of coating as a film or wash coat, which acts as a sealer to prevent ink absorption. The next step is a matte coating. A matte coat has more clay than a wash coat and is good for projects with a lot of text. However, if your project involves large areas of heavy, dark ink coverage, matte coat papers can sometimes appear somewhat mottled. The next step is a dull, suede or velvet coat. Like matte coatings, dull coatings are good for text readability because they are not as reflective as a gloss coat. Glossy coatings actually have the same amount of clay as a dull coat, but the mill smooths and polishes the sheets using a process called calendaring. They run the paper between rollers, which compress and smooth the paper. Glossy coatings are great for color photographs, but the same shiny qualities that make photos look great can make text harder to read because of the glare. Gloss coated papers can be somewhat less white than dull coated papers because the heat required to polish the paper also can add a slightly brownish cast. Coated papers often include shades of white named with terms, such as balanced, warm and cold to indicate the hue. Cream and other off-white tones are available, but because we so often use coated stock for showing off vibrant four-color printing, the paper itself is rarely brightly colored. As you can see, there are many different kinds of coated paper stocks, and each is suited to different tasks. It can be overwhelming to tackle these choices alone. Contact us early in the planning stage of your next printing project, and we ll help you choose the best paper and coating for your needs. photos istockphoto.com 8

8 MARKETING ADVISOR MAILING INFO HERE Printer Name Phasellus porttitor elit In hac habitasse platea Donec tempor nonummy QR CODE FPO Need a QR code? Call Great Reach Communications at About Us One or two small paragraphs about you and your company. One or two small paragraphs about you and your company. One or two small paragraphs about you and your company. One or two small paragraphs about you and your company. One or two small paragraphs about you and your company. One or two small paragraphs about you and your company. One or two small paragraphs about you and your company. About This Issue Programs used: InDesign CS Illustrator CS Photoshop CS Paper used: What paper did you use to print this issue? Ink used: What kind of ink did you use to print this issue? Coating used: What kind of coating did you use to print this issue? Computers used: imac G5 Press used: What kind of press did you use to print this issue? Bindery used: What kind of bindery did you use to print this issue?