Designing a compelling booklet, brochure or magazine is no easy task. However, it is a worthwhile activity, as brochure printing is a great way to connect with your target audience and increase brand awareness. As a result, you must spend a reasonable amount of time perfecting the design of your booklet to ensure it will catch the attention of your target audience. So, you might be asking yourself, how do I get my booklet ready for print? Well, we’ll tell you!

Choose Your Size

There are several sizes to choose from. If you’re designing and printing a booklet, brochure or magazine, the best size options are either A4 or A5. However, many online booklet printing services will allow you to choose a custom size.

Choose Your Paper Type

First, you need to choose your booklet paper type: silk, gloss, uncoated or recycled paper. Each paper type has its benefits and drawbacks:

– Silk
Silk coated paper has a luxurious feel, providing great ink to paper contrast. Silk paper is the ideal option if you’re printing a booklet, brochure or magazine that includes equal amounts of text and imagery.

– Gloss
Gloss paper is shiny, meaning images stand out more than they would on silk paper. As a result, gloss paper is an excellent option if you’re printing booklets, brochures or magazines containing many large photos or graphics.

– Uncoated
Uncoated paper lacks the shiny finish that gloss and silk have. However, the lack of shine means large amounts of text are easy to read. It has high absorbency, meaning it is ideal for printed materials that are created to be written on. However, colours may look duller than they would on silk and gloss paper.

– Recycled
If your business is working to become more sustainable and environmentally friendly, you might consider printing a booklet, brochure or magazine on recycled paper. However, it is not as aesthetically pleasing as other paper types, such as silk and gloss.

If you’re struggling to decide on a paper type, choose silk paper as it consistently offers a beautiful finish regardless of the content in your printed marketing materials.

Choose Your Paper Weight

Next, you need to decide on the best paper weight for your printed marketing materials. Paper weight is measured in grams per square metre, commonly referred to as gsm. Standard office paper is 80 to 100gsm, posters, leaflets and book pages are commonly 110 or 120gsm and brochure covers are somewhere between 170 and 200 gsm. The paper weight you choose will depend on how many pages are inside your booklet, brochure or magazine, and how durable you would like the copies to be. To ensure your printed materials last, you should choose a thickness between 130 and 170gsm.

Choose Your Binding

After you’ve determined the type of paper you’d like your booklet, brochure, or magazine to be created with, you need to choose how you’d like your copies to be bound. There are several options to choose from:

– Staple Bound
Staple binding involves putting two staples through the middle of a booklet, brochure or magazine to hold it together, sometimes known as saddle stitching.

– Wiro Bound
Wiro binding involves putting wire rings through holes punched into the gathered paper.

– Perfect Bound
Perfect binding involves glueing pages to a spine.

If you’re finding it difficult to decide which binding option to pick, choosing staple binding is the safest option. Staple binding is a great way to create a durable booklet, brochure, or magazine. It is cost-effective and provides an excellent finish.

Prepare Your Booklet For Printing

Once you have picked your booklet, brochure or magazine’s size, paper type, thickness and binding, you should ensure that your design file is ready for printing. You must take the following into consideration when designing your booklet:

– Trim Line
The trim line is where your design will be trimmed during the cutting process. So if your booklet is A4, the trim line will match the height and width of an A4 page. However, the cutting blade is not always 100 percent accurate.

– Bleed Area
Because the cutting blade is not always completely accurate, you must include a bleed area on your design. The bleed area must extend 3mm outside of the trim lines on every side of the design, regardless of the size of your document.

– Quiet Area
The quiet area is all content within 5mm of the trim line. It is recommended that you do not place any important text, imagery or graphics within the 5mm quiet area, as they may be removed during the cutting process, which is not always 100 percent accurate. Including content within the 5mm quiet area will make your design look cluttered.

By choosing the right size, binding, paper type and thickness and following design best practices, you can create a compelling booklet, brochure or magazine that appeals to your target audience.