Week 3 reading: Ch. 18 "Brochures"by Doug Newsom & Jim Haynes
The 18th chapter of the book talks about brochures.
The chapter is interesting because design seems like the last thing that people will think of when the words "public relations" are thrown at them. It's most probably because people do no really understand public relation AND what exactly brochures are. This is what the chapter explains.
'Brochure' is a general term of booklets, fliers, circulars, leaflets, pamphlets, and even tracts. With distinct characteristic to each, they all have something in common: to publicize a message by an organization to the public. That is why, it is important that PR practitioners learn about brochures.
Producing a brochure is an art of integrating words and visuals so that 'the whole is a sum greater than its parts'. There are six important steps of making brochures for publication that were discussed in this chapter:
1. Define the purpose of making the brochure.
At first, decide whether your brochure is to persuade, or to inform and educate. Then be spesific. You should be able to reduce the purpose you're aiming, to a simple sentence.
2. Develop an organizing a concept for it.
A concept will help to make sure that the words, visuals, color and space in the brochure coordinated with each other well.
3. Write the content: Giving shape to the information.
Put the brochure into shape only when you are surely certain and certainly sure that the purpose and concept are clear. Avoid exaggeration and vague information. Watch the grammar and accuracy of information.
4. Design the presentation of information.
Be consistent in your style of writing (for example, if you choose to use British spelling, make sure that you do so for the entire brochure). Decide on your tone, whether you want to be cheerful or somber, slow or fast paced, etc.
Using images in a brochure is tricky; only use an image when it can convey a message.
There are many ways to fold a brochure -depends on where the brochure will be distributed- but the basics are the four-page fold, gate fold, accordion fold, and eight- to sixteen-fold.5. Produce the brochure.
There are three ways to print your brochure: letterpress (traditional printing method), offset (to print large quantity), or gravure (produces highest quality printing).
6. Distribute the brochure.
It is necesarry to decide and know initially where to distribute your brochure. Should you distribute through mailing, make sure the size of the brochure fits the envelope. If you make the digital format of the brochure, make sure the sharpness of color, images, and texts is consisten.
Those are the essential steps of making a brochure in a glance. They are important for PR practitioners as it is one of the most effective ways to reach a wide target audience.
6 comments:
Hey Eva! Great post and summary on the chapter of Brochures. I'm really glad that you chose this topic to do your reading on as you provided a detailed yet simplified summary of the entire chapter. Furthermore, it is very useful not only for our group members, but also to our entire course mates as we have to create a brochure for our PR assignment. However, I have a few suggestion for your post. Perhaps you could have shown a picture of one brochure in particular and explain it in relation to the 6 steps of making a brochure such as who is the brochure targeted at and etc. This will make it easier for people to comprehend the steps for making a brochure. It is just a suggestion. =) Anyway, Thank you for putting up this post and good job! =)
Heya Eva, well done on the post. You have clearly explained with pictures on how an organization can effectively use brochures to reach out to the community. I agree that brochures are a good way to create awareness and interest about the organization and most organization use brochures.
However, brochures are not the only way for an organization to tell its messages to the public, there are other forms, which can be used such as social media like blogs and Facebook, newsletters, press releases, campaigns and conventions just to name a few ways. I feel that if an organization would like to convey their message and reach out to the public effectively and efficiently, they should not only use one method of publishing their message such as a brochure, but they should also combine a few methods and other forms to publicize and convey their message. This will ensure easier, faster and greater awareness about the organization by their target audience.
Also, perhaps you could have included a current example on how a real organization uses brochures to reach out to the public. A real example would have effectively shown the benefits of using brochures to publicize the organization's message.
Over all, interesting and educational post!
Thanks Eva, for the informative post! It’s a great summary of what a PR practitioner should know about how to create an effective brochure to be distributed to the public.
However, this post would be clearer by illustrating how successful brochures are in enabling the company to achieve their goals through the distribution of brochures to the public, by inserting statistics and real-life company successes. Moreover, as the public are increasingly more educated, they may not be as easily convinced by brochures as people of the past. Perhaps, the evolution of brochures can be shown, to indicate their continued relevance to companies as an advertising tactic and its impact on people in today’s society.
Brochures are perhaps one of the most traditional form of advertising. While I agree that there are certain guidelines to be followed while going about creating brochures, I feel that it is more important that the brochure created is different and creative enough to capture the attention of the person reading it. Greater emphasis could be placed on the pictures, colours, fonts and perhaps a catchy tagline to attract people to read the brochure.
All in all, it’s a great post on brochures!
Thanks for the nice comments, guys!
I was thinking of putting up an example too, but you know, length constrain :D
Shasi.. Thanks for the additional information. More and more companies these days indeed prefer social networking or websites (online means) as the main publication medium. Besides, brochures are not too environmentally friendly. The main topic of the article, however, is that if you must do a brochure, that was the best way to do it.
Calcy.. you're right. Creativity is very important. The reading is just making sure that PR practitioners do not get carried away in creativity that they sacrifice their potential to get more costumers.
Thanks so much for sharing this awesome info! I am looking forward to see more postsby you! press release writing services
Great information shared with us. PrintMagic Also provides Accordion Fold Brochure and to target your prospects is one of the best ways to relate more information to them in an easy to read manner. While there are many brochure printing types and also available in the current market, The PrintMagic also provides Accordion Fold Brochure and looks extravagant and also provides a lot of space to add pertinent information.
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