Second Graded Project

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• "Advertisements" graded project — third step.
  • The ads designed in the second step of the project can now be reused for a simple self-mailer. Look at these pictures of a basic three-panel brochure for suggested layout and detailed measurements: front side and back side.
  • For additional details on the design of flat mail, see the United States Postal Service's Publication 63.
• Three-panel layout
  • Strive for the most cost-effective printing, folding, and mailing — all of these affect your design choices.
    • A mail piece that can be processed automatically requires less postage.
    • A letter-size, letter-fold piece matches the equipment found in most print shops.
    • One of the panels should be a tear-out postage-paid reply card.
  • Gather design elements.
    • Copy and paste the ads into the new InDesign document.
    • Re-use material that went into your ads to fit the tri-panel format.
    • You can also use greeking (Type -> Fill with Placeholder Text) to indicate space for additional information.
  • Look at the design from the viewpoint of the recipient.
    • Consider the brochure as it unfolds over time — study how the sequencing of panels gradually reveals and/or explains the message.
    • The outside of the brochure is vitally important in keeping your work out of the wastebasket. None of your design wizardry will get a chance to work its magic unless the cover panel manages to lure the reader into opening up the brochure.
    • Remember that this is stuff that people don't want to look at (unlike, for instance, the editorial content of a magazine they choose to buy and read). All the typographic devices that make the text inviting (improving legibility, visual flow, etc.) are especially important.
  • Set up the panels with guides.
    • Feel free to arrange the design elements in any way you see fit, but maintain overall dimensions — in particular, notice that the fold-in panel is narrower than the two outer panels.
    • For a vertical-panel layout, create a landscape-oriented (wide format) letter-size, facing-pages document. On the master pages, use ruler guides to establish vertical folds creating two 3.75" outer panels and one 3.5" fold-in panel. Remember that the two sides of the brochure (represented by the two master pages) are mirror-images of each other.
    • For a horizontal-panel layout, use portrait-oriented pages and horizontal folds.
  • Reply card design
    • Provide room for recipients to fill in their address, and for four action items: "send more info", "have representative call", "not now, but keep on mailing list", "remove from mailing list" (actual text may vary).
    • Try to make the recipient work as little as possible (remember that your mailer is probably one in several they receive every day):
      • Wherever possible, use a multiple-choice format with checkboxes, rather than an "essay question" approach.
      • If possible, avoid having recipients re-enter their addresses by positioning the address label so that it becomes a part of the reply card. This also allows the sender to retain database #s and other info that the recipient might not otherwise provide.
    • Watch out for proper backup — sender address on one side, recipient info on the other. Important information should remain with the recipient, not mailed back to the sender.
    • Address side should comply with stringent USPS guidelines. Bar code may be fictitious, but overall dimensions should be according to specs.
    • Place sender's address on panel least likely to be left on the outside by incorrect folding.
  • Design your piece for ease of modification — you should be able to re-use the basic setup for several different jobs:
    • Use stylesheets instead of formatting the text directly.
    • Tie rules and ballot boxes to the text, so that everything reflows as a unit.
      • Rules can be created with paragraph rules (in the Paragraph palette menu)
        
        with tab leaders (Type -> Tabs)
        
        or as inline graphics.
        
      • Ballot boxes can be created with dingbats characters or as inline graphics.
    • Establish a design grid with modular blocks of copy and graphics, so that their positions can be easily exchanged.

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This document originally at <http://www.sanedraw.com/LEARN/DTP_I/PRJCT2C/INDEX.HTM> Copyright 2004 by Sandro Corsi. Created 1993-04-13. Last modified 2004-03-15.