Brochure Design Process

I learned several things in the process of creating an informational brochure for a fictional library. I went in thinking I knew exactly what I wanted to create, how I wanted it to look, and which design platform I would use. I quickly realized that the process of creation was going to take a bit longer than I thought, because it turns out design websites don't have direct access to my brain.

After a few disappointing attempts using Lucidpress, I switched over to Canva. I'm sure I could've worked with Lucidpress (or any number of free design sites) and got what I needed from it eventually, but Canva felt more (that is, quickly) intuitive to my design process.

A word on my design process...it's most definitely not streamlined. I'm both a visual and hands-on learner, which basically amounts to me making multiple physical, but crappy, drafts of something before putting a final copy together. I like to see my design in action (plus I truly enjoy the art of crafting), which meant for this project I first had to create a few mini-mock-ups (tri-folding half sheets of paper) to work out which text sections would go where.

Another thing I learned/navigated was the tension between content and creation. Once I got going on Canva, I was ready to pick out fonts and colors and create striking contrasts...only I didn't quite have my content ready. I needed the images and text to carry on with the design, but the design was, admittedly, more "fun" to play around with.

Eventually I had a working brochure, and I can definitely see the use of this kind of product in a library. While I may be a Millennial, I still like to have paper copies of certain informational things, and I'm certainly not alone there. Libraries may or may not already have templates for brochures like the one I created, but either way, it's helpful to know I could jump in and update an existing brochure or create a new one (once I have all the necessary content and I've artsy-fartsy-ed my way through a few paper drafts, that is).