Ok, you caught me. There is no official list of rookie design mistakes. But if a list existed, this mistake would be on it.
While waiting to pick up someone at the airport the other day, I looked at the brochure display. These displays can hold dozens of 8.5″ x 11″, landscape oriented, tri-fold brochures.
Because of the design of most brochure displays, you typically only see the top third or fourth of each brochure.
In just about any display, you’re bound to find a brochure that makes an almost fatal design mistake. Can you guess what it is?
The mistake is when the designer doesn’t realize how little of a brochure cover can be seen in a display. I already mentioned that you only see the top third or fourth of the brochure. But there’s always at least one brochure where the eye-catching copy or graphic is in the middle of the brochure…which can’t be seen in most displays.
In the brochure display I was looking at, most were designed properly. For example, the whale watching tour brochures featured a picture of a whale on the top portion of the brochure. That’s a good way to catch people’s attention as they scan the display for something of interest. For brochures promoting a city, the city name was prominently displayed at the top of the brochure, as it should.
But one brochure towards the bottom of the display showed nothing but a dark brown color. No text. No bright colors to catch your eye.
The designer in me got curious enough to grab the brochure. Sure enough, the headline was in the middle of the page, totally invisible when placed in a brochure display. While I picked up the brochure for “professional” reasons, I’d be willing to bet very few others bothered. Since there was nothing to pique their interest, why would they?
Lest you think only travel brochures should follow this rule of putting important information on the top, many Chambers of Commerce use brochure displays to promote their members no matter what business those members are in. And trade shows may use brochure displays, too. The point is, you never know where a brochure you design might end up.
In design we talk a lot about choosing the right font and font size based on who is reading the material we’re laying out. For example, if the target audience is seniors, you’d want to use a font size that is easy for older people to read. Something just as important that isn’t talked about as much is under what circumstances people will be looking at your work.
When you land a brochure project, ask questions about how the brochure will be used. Perhaps the only use will be in a direct mail package where placement of cover elements isn’t as important as it is when the brochure is intended for a display.
But if there’s even a remote possibility that the brochure will end up in a display, you’ll want to design for that right from the start. At the very least, you’ll score points for raising the issue with the client. Clients love when you think of something they might have missed. That’s the point at which you’re adding extra value to your services beyond just design. And that’s one of the reasons clients will keep calling you instead of someone else.
