We here at kaizen are experts when it comes to all things print, we have put together this extensive guide to help you master the art of the booklet. Whether it’s designing or simply printing we want to answer all your questions and teach you everything you could possibly want to know about designing and printing booklets so you can get the most out of them.
Table of Contents
- What is a booklet?
- Top 15 uses of a booklet
- Booklet and brochure templates
- When to use a brochure
- What to include in a brochure
- Benefits of a booklet
- How to print a booklet?
- Luxury booklet printing
- Cheap booklet printing
- A4 brochure printing
- A5 brochure printing
- Brochure design
- Stapled booklet printing
- Why brochures are important
- How to design a booklet in word
What is a booklet?
Booklets come in various shapes and sizes and have many names, they can often be referred to as:
- booklets
- brochures
- magazines
These are only a number of possible names but essentially if its cover is made from paper and isn’t hard like a book it’s considered a booklet. Booklets are a tool which most businesses have at their disposal, there a great return of investment (and we’re not just saying that because we print them). From magazines, annual reports, product brochures and restaurant menus there really is a booklet for every occasion and every business.
Top 15 uses of a booklet:
- Product Catalogs
- Annual Reports
- Theatre programmes
- Menus
- Event guides or Programmes
- Comics and Graphic novels
- Prospectus
- Magazines
- Newsletters
- Photo Books
- Company Directories
- Health and Safety guides
- Employee handbooks
- Activity book/log books
- Training manuals
Product Catalogs
One of the most popular uses of a brochure is to sell your products. Product catalogues give you the ability to showcase the features and price of your products without the need for a salesperson. If you work in a very product heavy business sector booklets offer a cost-effective way to sell your products, increase your business and see an immediate return of investment.
Annual Reports
A lot of businesses like to summarise the financial year with the aid of an annual report. An annual report is a great way for business owners, CEOs and shareholders to asses the highs and lows of the business year and reevaluates for next year. Booklets are the ideal way of digesting this very text heavy data, allowing readers to skim over information and skip to vital parts.
Theatre Programmes
Here at kaizen print, we do a lot of print and design work for The Grand Opera house, Belfast’s premium theatre as well as printing for multiple smaller more indie theatre companies. Making us experts at both printing and designing booklets to be used as theatre programmes. Theatre programmes enable the spectator to keep up to date with what’s happening onstage, participate in any sing-alongs, see any future shows and advertisements from sponsors in a lighthearted and engaging way.
Menus
We offer single sheet menus in the form of single-use menus, heavy laminated menus and laminated menus but sometimes these just don’t match a business’s needs. This is when a booklet style menu comes in handy for cafe’s, bars, restaurants or take away restaurants. If you sell a lot of different products (food or drink) or want your brand to appear luxurious or appeal to high-end clients then look no further than our digital printed booklets. Want custom sized menus? Simply contact us with your ideas here.
Event guides or Programmes
The key to any good event is organisation and planning. With this in mind, one should organise getting an event guide designed up to fully outline the locations and times of procedures to help the event run smoothly and keep attendees in the know. A booklet offers the perfect platform to display all this information, due to their vast variation in size and amount of pages they are ideal for events both big and small.
Comic/Graphic Novel
Due to our state of the art printers, we can print artwork and pictures in stunning true colours making them a no brainer for comic and graphic novel printing. Our dynamic booklet maker also collates and staples booklets in a way that’s exactly the same as a comic or graphic novel would traditionally be done.
Prospectus
Universities worldwide spend a lot of money trying to make their university seem eligible to both students and their guardians. A booklet or brochure is a very cost effective and successful way for a university to market itself to interested parties, providing lots of information and images whilst remaining easy to digest, resulting in a persuasive argument.
Magazines
Whether they’re monthly, bi-weekly or weekly magazines are a great way inform readers in an easily digestible and entertaining way. From small 8 page magazines right up to 32-page glossy magazines we have the capability to print it all and at an affordable price too.
Newsletter
A newsletter is a great way to inform customers, clients, suppliers and staff about all the going on’s in your business, whether it’s new promotions, changes to your business or just general gossip about your industry sector. Displaying this information in a booklet is essential if you work in a large corporation and have a lot of information to relay, making it easy to navigate and engaging for the reader.
Photo Books
Photo books are essentially scrapbooks without the added stress and tiresome hours. They make great mementoes and are a great way to commemorate someone or something special to you. You can consider gifting them for loved ones and are perfect for birthdays, weddings or funerals as they are available in batches as small as 25.
Company Directory
Working within a large company can become very complex without the right resources. It can be hard to navigate around the various floors, sectors or branches. In instances like this, a company directory is essential, outlining all the details of different branches, departments and staff including relevant addresses, phone numbers and emails.
Health and Safety guides
Every well-run business has a clear understanding of health and safety guidelines and ensures all their members of staff have read and understood the health and safety rules of their workplace. Providing your staff with a health and safety guide goes above and beyond what is required by the business owner and ensures no member of staff is being negligent. This is especially important in business sectors where staff are working around food or operating heavy machinery.
Employee handbook
Employee handbooks are a must in every business, they outline the core values and beliefs of the business as well as address how one should behave as part of the business and sometimes the details of their contract. It is important every member of staff has access to an employee handbook so they fully understand the rules and regulations of the workplace.
Activity Book/Log Book
In a busy or large work environment, it is sometimes essential for there to be an activity book to keep track of what has been done, when and by whom. These can most commonly be seen in workplaces as cleaning records but have a wide variety of uses. Another great example of the use of a log book is as an injury and accident report book to ensure all issues in the workplace are properly recorded.
Training manual
For skilled/semi-skilled jobs a training manual is a necessity in case any staff require consultation after the formal training period to touch upon their knowledge or clarify something. Training manuals are also great for getting new members of staff up to speed quickly and booklets are a great way to present this information with a helpful table of contents section so they can jump to relevant parts.
Brochure/Booklet templates
Here at kaizen print, we want to make the process of printing a booklet as simple as possible for you, that’s why we have designed up handy little cheat sheets to make designing and preparing a booklet for print as simple and straightforward as possible. View all our templates here!
Need help with designing your brochure? Get in touch with one of our expert graphic designers here.
When to use a brochure
A brochure is an ideal product for a wide variety of businesses, from car showrooms to takeaways and shops, a booklet can be utilised almost everywhere! But when should you use them?
A brochure is best used on those indecisive customers, to provide them with further information and influence their decision and help you secure the sale. Booklets are also great when you have a lot of information to convey and not a lot of time to do so, brochures give readers the option to skim over the information and are easy to navigate so they can get to what they need to know quicker. Brochures are also great if you offer a lot of products or services and can’t fit them on the likes of a flyer or poster.
What to include in a brochure
Taking the decision to design and print a batch of booklets can have a massive impact on your business sales and can see a large return of investment, but only when they have been designed correctly and include all the necessities.
Eye-catching cover
Your booklets need to stand out first and foremost. Whether its smart and simple design or it’s loud and proud it doesn’t matter. Your customer needs to want to read your booklet or else they won’t, simple.
Table of contents
Booklets are an aid to help you streamline information that you want to get across, that said they have to be easy to navigate. The harder it is for people to find the sections relevant to them the less likely they are to try. A table of contents should always be featured in the first 2-3 pages of a booklet so it’s the first thing the reader sees. If your booklet is under 10 pages a table of contents isn’t a necessity.
Page numbers
This goes hand in hand with a table of contents, making it super easy and quick to navigate your brochure.
Coloured themes
Another great idea is to feature coloured sections throughout your booklet. This works especially well if your booklet is large or if sections only relate to particular people.
Images
Just like an eye-catching cover the inside of your booklet has to be engaging. Images are a great way to break up text, explain relevant points, showcase products or services and help build a more persuasive argument.
Text
It’s self-explanatory that a brochure should feature text, but how you use text is very important. You should use a variety of different text fonts and sizes to make your text easily readable and draw attention to more important aspects. However, there is a fine line between what works and what doesn’t. If your text is too varied and your booklet will appear chaotic and be hard to navigate, too similar and the reader will struggle to differentiate between key points.
Contact information
Booklets work similar to a business card and can be used as networking resources, increasing awareness of your business. By featuring your address, phone number and email your business becomes easily contactable. There’s a wide range of places throughout a brochure you can put this information but most businesses prefer the back page. You can also feature links to your social channels if your business has a strong social media presence.
Match your branding
Think of your branding as a well-selected outfit, each aspect of your brand should integrate with each other and your booklet is no exception to this. It should feature your brands prefered colours, typography imagery and of course, your logo. Any differentiation between your booklet and your brand image will appear unprofessional and affect the success of your booklet.
Benefits of a booklet
Booklets can be used in a variety of purposes, making them an ideal product for almost every business. The benefits of a booklet really are endless but here are some of the top reasons why you should buy a batch of booklets.
They’re versatile
Booklets are ideal for a wide variety of purposes, from health and safety guides to menus their application is only hindered by your own imagination. Think you could use a booklet? Read our top 15 uses for a booklet (above).
There inexpensive
Booklets are relatively cheap for all that they offer your business, especially when buying in larger quantities you get more bang for your buck. However, if you only require a small batch of booklets we can accommodate this too, with a minimum run of 25.
They’re great for marketing your business
Booklets can be a great way to market your business without the aid of a sales or marketing team. All you have to do is distribute them and they do the rest of the work for you, increasing your sales, brand awareness and the perception of your brand.
Easy to distribute
Whether your sales team distribute them, you give them out at networking events, hand them out with order deliveries or even just leave them at a reception area for customers to flick through or take home there are a number of cost-effective ways to distribute your booklets.
They’re not time bound
Unless your business information changes such as your address, product prices or services a batch of booklets can last a long time, making them a worthwhile investment in the long run. This is worthy advice if you plan on ordering big batches like a lot of our clients do.
How we print a booklet
We print booklets in a six-step process, artworking, printing, cutting, creasing, collating and packing.
Each booklet gets sent to our artworker from a member of the sales team, the artworker then inspects the design for any issues and amends where possible/necessary then pass it onto one of our print specialists.
Once on the rip the print specialist prints the individual pages using one of our Xerox printers, again inspecting any issues. Once done they pass it onto a finishing specialist.
If required, the finishing specialist will laminate the pages in either gloss or matt lamination using our matrix laminator then trims the pages using a mechanical guillotine. Once these processes have been completed the pages are fed through our Duplo feeder, creaser and dynamic booklet maker resulting in a finished booklet which is checked for any final issues and then packaged for collection or delivery.
Still confused about the process? Watch this short video we made!
Luxury booklet printing
Booklets come in a variety of types and styles from cost-effective options to the most luxurious finishes to really wow potential clients. We offer a selection of lamination finishes on our booklets including gloss and matt lamination, Matt offers a smooth feeling high-end finish to really make an impact. Gloss, however, adds a shimmering effect to your booklets, again making them feel really high end and elegant. Our booklet covers can be printed on a choice of paperweights up to 250gsm. Choosing a heavier paper stock like 250 results in a durable and upmarket product that will last.
Cheap booklet printing
Here at kaizen, satisfying customers is a number one priority, sometimes you don’t need a super glossy brochure, sometimes you just need something cheap and cheerful. Luckily we have just the option for you, all our brochures come in self-cover form meaning you can print a booklet with the same weight cover as inserts, this allows you to cut down on cost but not quality. You can also leave out the choice of lamination, again saving on price. Our booklets also come in quantities as low as 25 making them perfect for short term marketing campaigns.
A4 Brochure printing
There are two main sizes when it comes to booklet printing, A4 and A5. A4 booklets are twice the size of an A5 booklet making them ideal for packing full of information. A4 booklets are our most sought after product because they’re great for highlighting high-resolution images giving you a platform to impress. A4 booklets are a great resource if you sell a lot of different products, you have a lot of text, images or need the extra space for people to fill in.
A5 Brochure printing
A5 brochures are great as handy little pocket pals, perfect for handing out to customers to take home and a great resource when you have too many products to list on a flyer but not enough for a larger A4 booklet. A5 booklets are more popular among clients who will be distributing the booklets at a later date.
Stapled booklet printing
All our booklets are stitched using a Duplo dynamic booklet maker or by hand if they are more of a custom shaped booklet. Stitching refers to the process of stapling a booklet together in two places resulting in the iconic style of a stapled booklet. This process is checked by one of our print finishing specialists, ensuring every booklet turns out perfect.
Why brochures are important
Brochures and booklets have the ability to completely revolutionise your business, whether it’s by selling more product, getting more clients, increasing brand awareness, smoothing the workflow or whatever it may be, when used correctly they are an extremely valuable asset.
Booklets offer a platform where people can find out about your business, almost like a website that they can hold in their hands, a booklets images, text and layout should be reflective of the business’s core values. This will influence if a potential customer wants to do business with you. This said you should have all your contact details on your brochure to help make it easy to contact your business, for example on the back of your booklet.
Booklets are also ideal for conveying masses of information in a quick easy to navigate manner. They allow readers to skip to relevant information such as product specifications or a certain category. This is why they are a go-to product for a lot of our customers.
How to design a booklet or brochure in word
Don’t. Your booklet is a great tool for your business but only when designed well, Microsoft Word doesn’t have the capabilities to create a complex and visually appealing booklet that will have a positive effect on your business. Booklets are an investment in your business and should be treated as such otherwise you won’t see a return of investment from your purchase.
We recommend using Adobe software such as Indesign or Illustrator to create your booklets because they have complex features so you can finetune your booklet and get it just right. If you don’t have much experience in using this software you can teach yourself the basics using online tutorials. However, we personally recommend investing in graphic design to help execute your ambition. Here at kaizen print, we have our own design team, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
If you found this article useful please feel free to share, if not tell us how we can improve in the comments. If booklet printing is something you are interested in we would love to help you, simply contact us via the contact form. Call us on 02890022474, email us on [email protected] or pop into our offices at 3 Jennymount Business Park, North Derby Street, Belfast for a consultation.
