When it comes to print marketing, design can make or break your campaign, and it makes no difference whether you’re creating flyers, brochures, posters, business cards, or anything else – the fact is that it’s the visuals that are what grab people’s attention (or, unfortunately, sometimes make them look the other way). You’ve only got a limited amount of space and a limited amount of time to convey your message, and that means every design decision counts – a lot – because no one wants to hand out something to a potential customer only to find they throw it away right afterwards.
The good news is that it’s possible to avoid common design mistakes once you know what they are, and as a result, you can create print materials that not only look amazing, but that also get the results you’re after. With that in mind, keep reading to find out more about how to avoid common design mistakes in print marketing.
Overcrowding The Design
We’ll start with quite a classic mistake that’s easy to do and very common – trying to fit too much information into one thing. We’ve all seen flyers or brochures that are totally jam-packed full of tiny text, crowded images, and loads of extra information that just seems to go on and on, and although when you’re designing your print marketing you might think it’s best to include everything, the fact is that as a customer reading all that, it’s just too much and can feel quite overwhelming. And when that’s the case, most people aren’t going to spend their time and energy reading it all, and they’ll just skim through or ignore it completely. So it doesn’t matter that you’ve included everything because no one’s going to know about it
So what’s the solution? Use the whitespace and give your design some more room to breathe. Whether you’re designing something for leaflet printing or you’re coming up with a band new brochure, you’ve got to do what you can to keep your copy short and to the point – it’s better for everyone, and that includes your business, not to mention it’ll save time and make things easier for your customers.
The best thing to do is to focus on one key point you want to make, whether that’s a specific message you want to send or an offer you don’t want people to miss out on, and always keep things short and to the point. It’s can often be wise to use bullet points and headings to break things up and make it easier to read, and that way you can also draw the reader’s eye where you want it to go, which is really helpful.
Not Keeping The Branding Consistent
Consistency really is key, especially when it comes to branding, and one of the biggest design mistakes you can make is creating print materials that don’t match the rest of your brand’s look or identity. If your business has a specific colour scheme, logo, and font style, that those things need to be part of your print design – it’s non-negotiable and should be where you start planning how things are going to look. The fact is that a flyer that doesn’t match your website or other elements of your business is never going to look professional and trustworthy, and it might even confuse your customers so much they decide to give your business a miss altogether.
Before you start designing, double-check your brand guidelines (and yes, you should have brand guidelines – if not, that’s the first thing you’ll need to put in place – it’s a potentially long job, but it’ll save you a lot of time and effort later on if you can do it sooner rather than later) and consider your logo, colour scheme, fonts, and the various images you tend to use that define your brand how you want people to see it. The end goal is that you want people to look at your flyer and instantly know that it’s from you, even before they start reading it. And remember, when your brand is consistent it builds trust, and trust is what turns leads into customers and one-time customers into loyal ones.
Choosing The Wrong Fonts
Font choice is probably more important than you might think in print marketing – if your font looks pretty but is ultimately hard to read, you’re basically wasting your flyer, brochure, or business card. True, fancy fonts might look great, but they can be a nightmare for people to read, especially when they’re also small. Plus, don’t use too many different fonts either because it just makes everything look chaotic and messy and, unfortunately, unprofessional and immature as well.
There’s a good rule of thumb to keep in mind when it comes to the font or fonts you choose – make sure you pick simple, easy-to-read fonts and stick to a maximum of two or three. That’s it. You can use one for your headings and another for the body text, and you’re probably set. Yes, it can be tempting to add another if you want to show some emphasis, but be careful if that’s the route you decide to take because more isn’t always better and it might be the thing that ruins an otherwise fantastic design. Also, make sure your font is big enough so people can read it from a distance (don’t go smaller than 10 or 12 unless it’s absolutely necessary – and with good design it shouldn’t have to be a problem) and always bold your headings so they stand out properly and make the point they’re meant to make.
Not Guiding The Reader’s Eye
When you’re designing print materials, you need to think about something called ‘visual hierarchy’ which sounds complicated but doesn’t have to be. It’s just the arrangement of all the elements you need to guide the reader’s eye in a natural way to the things you definitely want them to read and know about. The problem can be that if everything on the page is competing for attention, it’s going to confuse the reader and they won’t know where to look first, which could end in a lost sale and lost opportunity for creating a customer who understands what you do and how you can help them.
It’s best to start with the most important information, which should be the main thing you’re trying to get across, or the main offer you want people to know about. Make that really bold and prominent (perhaps with a larger font, contrasting colours, or placing it in the right place, for example), and from there you can use smaller fonts for other, less important information, like the products details or your contact information. In other words, visual hierarchy is about making the most important message stand out so it catches people’s attention and they want to know more, and then the rest of the info is something they can choose to read so it doesn’t have to be quite so bold.
Using Low-Quality Images
Images can totally transform a design for the better, but using low-quality or pixelated images can do the opposite and it can make your print marketing look cheap and unprofessional. Blurry images might not seem like too much of a big deal, but they’ll make people question the quality of your products, even if it’s a subconscious thing. High-quality images, however, are something that can create a sense of professionalism and they’ll make people think your products or services are high-quality too – and worth the money, which is vital.
When you’re choosing images, always go for high-resolution files (300 dpi is the standard for print, so it’s got to be at least that) and never stretch an image to fit spaces they’re not designed for because they’ll almost always look awful. If that’s an issue, the best thing to do is to crop them properly and they’ll stay looking good quality but still fit the space (or get a professional to design things for you, saving you the effort). Speaking of professionals, if you can’t get hold of good photos, you’ll need to have your own, and engaging a photographer who understands about lighting and composition is usually the best option.
Forgetting To Include A Call To Action
What do you want your reader to do after seeing your brochure or reading your flyer? Just having a beautiful design isn’t enough – you’ve got to literally tell people what to do next, otherwise most of them won’t do it.
That’s where a clear call to action (CTA) is going to help you. You can use it to encourage people to visit your website, call you for more information, sign up for a newsletter, and so on, but whatever it is, make sure it’s clear, concise, easy to follow, and included on your print marketing somewhere – you need it so don’t forget it. Your CTA has to stand out in your design so people know just what to do, and ideally it should sound urgent (without being too scary) – that’s how you’ll get people to take the next step!
