Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Choosing the Right Images for Your Brochure: A How-To Guide

When used to their fullest potential, brochures combine the informative nature of thorough written content with the eye appeal of attention-grabbing images, creating a marketing tool as edifying as it is visually compelling. In order to choose the right images for your brochure, it is essential to keep in mind the central tone and theme of your brochure's written content, as well as your company's overall philosophy. Following these guidelines will enable you to decide on images that will both complement and elevate your brochure.

If you're planning to use original image content for your brochure, consider hiring a professional photographer to shoot your products, offices or employees. This will help ensure that your business looks its best, and profesisonal photographs will allow you to sidestep amateurish mistakes such as poor lighting or blurriness. Another great option for original content is to hire a professional artist, illustrator or graphic designer to create unique and interesting illustrations for your brochure. Even a revamped company logo can add invaluable visual flair. For more cost-effective image content, you can search online for illustrations or photos to purchase for use in your brochure; try signing up with a website that provides access to royalty-free stock images. Just make sure that any drawings or photographs you use in your brochure are properly cleared by the owner in order to avoid the legal and ethical repercussions of image theft! You may also want to consider illustrating important facts or statistics with an easy-to-read chart or graph; such information is much more quickly absorbed by a reader when it's presented in pictures rather than words.

After you've chosen the pictures themselves, the next step is to make those pictures as impactful as possible. First, make sure that you're using high-resolution images. Keep in mind that the image resolution on your computer monitor is very different from that of a high-quality printer; a picture that looks fantastic on your screen may not necessarily look equally great on paper. If you have any questions about the proper dpi (dots per inch) ratio for brochure images, talk to your printer! PrintRunner has a team of design professionals on call, just waiting to answer your questions and guide you toward creating the perfect brochure for your business. Another way to make your pictures really pop is to print your brochures in color. Black and white can be boring, but beautiful, full color photos offer an easy way for your brochure to capture and keep a reader's attention.

In order to avoid costly reprints, you should always try to avoid using pictures that can date your brochure. For instance, if you're planning to move to a new office, don't use a photograph of your old office in the brochure. Since readers look to brochures for up-to-date information, such oversights can quickly make your brochure seem obsolete. You should also take care to choose images that contribute to the main message of your brochure, and resist the urge to include eye-catching pictures that have only a vague connection to your written copy. Are you creating a brochure to advertise a new product line? Try including attractive, well-lit photos of those products, not a picture of a family on the beach! Remember, the purpose of the images in a brochure is to reinforce that brochure's central theme and make it as appealing as possible. Don't pad your brochure with visual filler!

Finally, after you've carefully chosen the perfect drawings, illustrations or photos for your brochure, make sure you include captions for each image. Studies have shown that image captions are the most frequently read parts of any brochure. Make your captions count by briefly reiterating a few of your brochure's main points whenever possible, rather than simply describing the image itself. Keep these tips in mind and you'll have no trouble choosing the right images to enhance your brochure and increase your reader response rate!

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