By Marsha Maung
© 2005, Marsha Maung Email : marshamaung@yahoo.com Site :http://www.marshamaung.com Feel free to reprint or publish thisarticle on your website, ezine, magazine, newsletter.etc. Pleaseinclude the bio, links and credit intact.
~~~~ Design is a very subjective thing, therefore, if you ask mehow to come up with a first class design for your marketingcollateral or publishing mediums, it would be very unfair for meor anyone else to tell you what is a good design and what is abad design. But there are certain elements and principles thatwe should look for in a design to determine whether the designand layout of the material will be able to carry the messageacross effectively to the readers and your potential market. Themain aim of every design material related to advertising orpromotion is either to sell something, promote something orbrand a company.
Keep the design and layout simple and clean The more clutteredor messy the layout and design is for your marketing collateral,the harder it would be for your customers to find the importantstuff. So, don't overcrowd the design of your marketingmaterials. First and foremost, it should be kept clean and verysimple. Yes, we all want to fit as much information as we caninto the design but hey, keep the purpose of the design of themarketing stuff in mind. You want to design a novel or designsomething that sells.
Design Colors If you have a set of corporate colors (like thecolors that you use on your logo, letterhead, envelopes.etc),keep to the same colors in your design. You should present avery simplistic, unique, corporate, professional, consistentimage, not a haphazard one. How can anyone rely on you when youhave that kind of image, right? It's best that you not use toomany colors for your design. And another important point aboutdesigning marketing materials is this; avoid using all thecolors of the rainbow in one design! You're not trying toconfuse your customers, you're trying to make it easy for themto find information, attract them and urge them to buy somethingfrom you! I would say using 2 or 3 main colors from yourcorporate color for the design is good enough.
Fonts There are tons of free fonts (quite incredibly attractiveones at that) that you can find off the Internet for the designof your marketing stuff - but the sad news is that it's notalways possible to use all of them. Keep to one single font forthe content in your design, and if you wish to, you can use adifferent (a bolder and louder font) for the headings and titlesin your design.
Images in your design Unlike web publishing, using images in thedesign of your brochures, flyers, menus, company profiles isalways a good idea. Enticing your customers with useful picturesor diagrams that illustrates your point or including pictures ofyour products in the design of your marketing stuff isencouraged. Be careful and weary of using stock photos from theweb for your marketing material. One, the resolution of suchimages (those that you can get off the Internet) is never goodenough for printing purposes. Two, you'll get in trouble withthe people who actually owns the rights to those images. So, ifpossible, if you want to use pictures or illustrative images inyour design, it's best to either get the pictures for the designyourself (with your digital camera) or you should just purchaseit
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