The next two things to think about as you design your flyer are simplicity and composition. If you don’t address these issues correctly you will lose your potential client’s interest immediately, or you will never get it in the first place. Subconsciously people’s eyes avoid copy that is busy and/or overwhelming, they don’t even realize it they just block it out, and you’ve lost your chance before you even started.
Simplicity involves the “KISS” rule. Keep It Simple Stupid, (which my good friend digitalmarketingdiva covered in her recent blog in regard to digital marketing here.)
Think carefully about what you need to say and trim your copy down to the bare essentials – you are not trying to tell your whole story here, you are just giving enough of the facts to get them to contact you or attend your event. PLEASE, I BEG YOU, resist the idea to put in more than one piece of clip art or use more than two different fonts. This is a common mistake inexperienced designers make. It seems more “designerish” to use lots of different elements – don’t do it. One large piece of art is much preferred over several small. I would generally avoid borders also, they tend to close things in and make them look cramped. (Think of how you feel when you walk in a house with vaulted ceilings, as opposed to low ceilings, see?)
People read from top to bottom and left to right. Decide what is most important and put that at the top and make it bigger. Decide what is next important and put that next. Then put your artwork in. Whatever is left to say, try to make smaller and put it at the bottom. This composition is just a general rule of thumb, and you can play around with variations.
Small print is okay, if you can capture their initial interest it is more likely people will become intrigued and will look for more information. Usually you will put this at the bottom. Here (left) is a good example of a great simple poster. It is eye catching and has some white space (breathing room). On the right is a good example of a bad example. Too busy, too many pictures, too many fonts, and poor composition.
Which one catches your eye?
02/10/2009 at 9:15 am Permalink
Hey Jennifer. Thanks for the great plug. I love the “cow review,” especially because I live in Santa Clara and look forward to seeing the cows each fall.
Your examples are great. The first one piques my interest, while the second one is too overwhelming to look at – so I just don’t bother to investigate what it’s all about.