Printing Your MyBrochureMaker Templates
At MyBrochureMaker we take pride in ensuring our customers have access to the best tools for creating business materials. But there are steps you can take to ensure that the message you deliver is as professional and engaging as possible.
Words.
The most beautiful design template is meaningless unless you have created a clear message to your prospective customer.
- Avoid technical or industry talk (unless you are a business to business company).
- Write “punchy” headlines that capture the reader’s interest.
- Check your document for spelling errors.
- Less can be more: You aren’t writing a Russian novel. Keep it short and sweet, concentrate on only the information a prospective customer needs to pick up the phone or email you.
- Include your contact information (sounds silly, but trust us, this happens).
- Don’t plagiarize. If you must use someone’s words, ask permission and make sure to attribute these words to their author.
Fonts.
Less is more (did we say that already?)
Keep your font styles and colors consistent. Don’t go hog wild with all of the options you have, find styles, colors and sizes which can be applied to all similar fields.
We can give you your fonts
If your company uses a font we don’t supply, contact us to discuss a custom account where we can deploy your special font needs.
Finding the right shade
Make sure your font colors match those of your logo or identity packaging. If you don’t have a program like Photoshop where you can find the six-digit hex colors your branding uses, try one of these sites and keep the six-digit codes handy:
LUNAPIC
http://www.lunapic.com/editor/
I was able to determine a hex color using this in less than 30 seconds. Simply upload an image of your logo, find the color picker icon on the left side of the page (the ninth icon from the top) and click on the color you’d like to find the hex value for. The six-digit color will display at the top of the page, preceded by a pound sign (#). For example, #FCCC3A .
PIXLR
http://pixlr.com/editor/
Closer to the functionality of Photoshop. If you are familiar with Adobe software tools, this is a nice choice.
We also found an article of other photo editors which can help you not only find colors, but also to prepare your images for use in your brochures.
http://www.bestdesigntuts.com/55-awesome-online-photo-editors/
Photos.
Finding the right photos to enhance your brochures requires more thought than simply uploading an image to MyBrochureMaker. Make sure to ask yourself these questions:
Is my image a high enough resolution?
We recommend a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Keep in mind that it is impossible to take a low-res image and turn it into a high res image.
Does the image fit the space?
You may have an awesome horizontally biased photo you would like to use in your brochure, but there is a good chance it’s awesomeness will be diminished if you try to wedge it into a vertically biased space.
Think twice about family photos
That picture of Aunt Millie with your grandson may be cute as heck, but it may not be the best choice for your Accountancy brochure. Make sure your images are relevant to the message.
Stock photos
You don’t have to use high-priced stock houses like Getty or Corbis to get great high-quality images for your brochures. We particularly like www.shutterstock.com for their competitive pricing and selection of images.
Printing.
Make sure you have a printer capable of handling high resolution output. Additionally, a printer that can perform duplex printing (printing on both sides of the paper without having to manually re-feed the paper) will make life easier for you.
Test first in black and white
If you are new to printing brochures on your printer and want to make sure your print options are set right and are feeding your paper in correctly, do a trial run in black and white to avoid wasting ink.
Landscape vs Horizontal
This can be another ink waster. For the record, all of our templates print in landscape with the exception of the Product Sell Sheet.
Talkin’ bout the resolution
Make sure you set your printer to print your brochures at 300 dpi or higher for optimal results.
It’s only worth the paper it’s printed on
Standard printer paper will not give you optimal results. Get down to your local office supply store and find 80 or 100lb stock paper. Both of these paper “weights” come in either a gloss or matte finish.
Get another pair of eyes on the page
Find a friend or colleague who can take a look at your creation. Typos, general thoughts about the use of images and the overall message can be missed when you are in the middle of creating a project… that’s why writers need editors.
It’s all about the business.
In the end, your brochure is an extension of your business. By following these steps, you can ensure you deliver the story of your company to your prospective customers in a way that increases your company’s value and professionalism.
We have launched another suite of templates for our Real Estate section, titled “Warm & Modern.” With rich dark tones and clean, elegant fonts, this suite can instantly raise the property value of the home you are offering.
MyBrochureMaker has a number of options available which will allow you to make adjustments to the images in your project. Here’s a break down of those tools:
