The Do’s & Don’ts of Printing Your Booklet

Booklet printing is a cost-effective marketing method that creates brand awareness, personalises your business and establishes authority in your chosen industry. The good news is that you can get booklets printed online quickly and easily, without breaking the bank.

What Are Booklets?

A booklet is a small book with a low page count, typically between eight to 36 pages. They usually have a paper cover and are often staple bound. Businesses create booklets for various uses, including product catalogues, corporate brochures, employee manuals, activity books, business reports and more. Booklets can be printed in various sizes, from A4 through to A7 and in various square sizes. Furthermore, many booklet printing services will allow you to print booklets in custom sizes if required. 

Why Booklets Are a Great Choice For Your Next Project

Booklets are an excellent way to market your products and services to prospective customers. Despite the rapid rise of digital marketing, print marketing remains an essential tool in any business’s marketing strategy. So whether you’re looking for a creative way to showcase your career portfolio, or you’re hoping to get your company’s products noticed by more people, booklets are a great choice. 

The Do’s of Printing Your Booklet

Choose the right binding and leave sufficient space

The nature of your booklet will determine the most suitable binding option. For example, suppose you’re getting a product catalogue, a newsletter or an activity book printed. In that case, you’re likely to choose stapled binding because it’s one of the most economical types of binding, which is sturdy enough to keep the booklet together for a reasonable amount of time. Alternatively, if you’re creating an employee handbook or a business report, you may want to consider wiro binding, as it is longer lasting. On the other hand, for booklets with many pages, you may want to consider perfect binding. Perfect binding is where the booklet’s spine is held together by glue and a paper cover.

Finally, it’s essential to leave sufficient space for the binding when creating the artwork for your booklet. If you don’t leave enough space for wiro binding, you may find that important information is obscured or cut off.

Be consistent in branding

An effective way to increase brand awareness and recall is with good business branding. For example, using specific fonts and brand colours on your booklet makes your business appear more professional and is more likely to be remembered by readers. Working with a reputable company offering booklet printing in Ottawa, ON (or indeed elsewhere more relevant) can help you to work out which colours look best on print media, which can help you to make revisions to your design in order to capture people’s attention best. 

Choose the right paper type, thickness and finish

The best paper type, thickness and finish for your booklet will depend on various factors: 

• What are you using the booklet for?
• How many images does your booklet include?
• How many pages are in the booklet?
• How long would you like the booklet to ideally last?

Regarding paper types, many booklet printing service customers prefer silk paper, which has somewhere between a gloss and matt finish, because it showcases vibrant colours without being excessively shiny. However, if silk paper isn’t suitable, don’t worry. There are various other paper types to choose from, including gloss, uncoated, recycled and natural paper.

Regarding paper thickness, you need to ask yourself how long you’d like the booklet to last. If you’re hoping for longevity, choose thicker paper that is less prone to damage. Additionally, choose from a wide range of print finishes, including gloss and matt lamination, UV varnish, spot UV and more. Print finishes add a professional touch to your booklet by making it stand out from the rest.

The Don’ts of Printing Your Booklet

Don’t forget to include bleed areas

Outside of the trim line (the line where your materials will be cut during the printing process), you must include a 3mm bleed area. Although the blades are supposed to fall directly on the trim lines, paper can sometimes shift during the printing process. As a result, you must add a margin of error to your design in the form of an empty 3mm bleed area to avoid vital content being cut off your booklet.

Don’t make the booklet too busy

There’s a lot of information you’ll want to include in your booklet, and it might be tempting to cram it all in. However, making your booklet too busy is off-putting to readers. If readers are met with a mass of disorganised information, they’re not going to know where to start and may put the booklet down. To ensure readers can logically follow your booklet, include a contents page, organise information into relevant blocks, have informative headings that break up the content and use high-resolution imagery to engage readers. 

Don’t underestimate the power of cover artwork

Your booklet’s front cover is the first thing a reader will see. If it doesn’t grab their attention almost immediately, they won’t read the booklet. That is precisely why you must invest time and effort in creating an impactful front cover that appeals to your target audience.