Note: I used Concourse Font of different styles like small-caps and etc. I decided to use the company name as this font. The company is service based company which provides supply chain services to the clients. I came up with content and kept on refining it. I read somewhere that Typography + Substance = great content.
I enjoyed creating this brochure, never before I had such a joy creating documents. I read the Practical Typography, and because of it, it was pleasant experience. It very easy to format documents, and I learned which style gives which mood and many more. Can you give your opinion?
I’ll preface by acknowledging I’m giving this feedback without knowing how you intend your brochure to be published/consumed—i.e., will it be printed as a hardcopy (i.e., paper brochure) or digitally (e.g., printed to PDF and publish online, and even then, is it intended for viewing on smaller/mobile screens or larger/desktop screens). These of course are important considerations.
That said, the first thing I might do is use Arabic numerals instead of Roman numerals for page numbers in the footer, and I’d center the page numbers. I might also delete the word “Services” from the footer on the pages it actually appears. I make both these suggestions because this is a very short document (as you said, it’s a brochure), so the Romans and section title in the footer are overkill/unnecessary and for my tastes detract a bit from the visual design.
Next, I might globally increase the size of all the body text and subheadings. And I might amplify the distinction between/among the subheadings, including by varying the use of title case, all caps, small caps lower case, and small caps title case. Of course, whatever changes I made, I’d keep the styles consistent (as you have now). For example:
In terms of overall design (in this case, using MB’s oh-so-charming Concourse), I think it’s quite nice—simple and elegant. Those are my design suggestions at this time. Your thoughts?
the reason here that you explained is opposite of what I think. At first I thought that why to put page numbers, and eventually due to fear of white space (typewriter habit according to MB) I thought to put numbers. But then I thought that page numbers are for long books, so why not go with different approach say Roman numerals. Same reason goes to putting “Services” into footer.
this is the biggest difficulty I had. The biggest problem for me was, how to differentiate Heading, Sub-heading, and body text so that it’s very easy and clear to understand. Especially with sub-heading I had a lot of problem. First I thought whether I should use only one-letter capitalize words, then after reading MB Practical typography, I came across a Résumé, where he has used small-caps, brilliantly, of small size so I thought why not use it. I had same problem with the Heading too (I’m not sure yet it is perfect or not). Then I came to know that all-caps should be letter spaced, so I chose 5% for all-caps words.
Now your design has significantly improved the visual context of heading and sub heading, but I’m not sure about body text. The reason I chose 16pt body text was because when I wrote all the content, I thought the white space was correct because maybe it gave a feeling of, its difficult to describe, of something good. One small thing I noticed in your design is that the space between heading and subheading have increased. In my case, I reduced it and the reason I thought was that the sub heading should visually say that it’s a sub heading of this heading. anyway thank you, you have showed many bright ideas.
If you see that this is a plain, black and white brochure, no color. I wasn’t sure how and what to create beautifully with color, then I thought about an advice from MB that if you make sure the typography and substance is correct, everything else takes care of itself. And what do you think about content?
You could delete the page numbers altogether (I actually prefer them). But if you do keep them, then I wouldn’t use Romans. Romans are generally used in the prefatory pages (acknowledgments, table of contents, etc.) of [longer] written works to differentiate those pages from the main text (the intro, body, and conclusion). There’s no such need to differentiate within a short brochure because it doesn’t have any prefatory pages. Similarly, there’s no need to list “Services” in the footer because there’s no need to differentiate it from any other section—you don’t have any other sections in your brochure except “Our Company,” but that’s just one page, and it’s already clearly differentiated by the heading up top.
Couple considerations: First, remember that white space isn’t just the part of the document AROUND the text but also WITHIN it that peeks through. Lighter-weight styles let more white space peek through—e.g., this regular B lets more white space peek through than this bold B. Second, text-to-white-space ratio isn’t just about aesthetics but also readability, though to be honest, I think the balance of text-to-white-space in my example is better, but of course, your opinion may differ. Regardless, your readers (clients) shouldn’t have to struggle to see/read the text because it’s too small for its weight. Generally, lighter-weight text should be a bit (or a lot) larger to compensate for it’s lightness/thinness. Given that you’re using Concourse 2, which is classified as thin, you can get away with increasing the size while maintaining a good text-to-white-space ratio but still making it easily readable.
As for content, it’s generally good for what I imagine you’re aiming to accomplish: providing a general sense of what the company does. For my tastes, it’s light on details, but that’s fine. That aside, there are several specific issues I might consider:
I get that the below is just supposed to be a bit of introductory flowery language, but the wording is awkward; it’s also not entirely grammatical.
I might try something like this:
I’d also hyphenate multi-words phrases (← like that one) when they act as a single unit modifying a noun. You have lots of these phrases but haven’t hyphenated them; you might wish to rework them altogether. I won’t list them all here, but here are the first couple (the red changes are mine):
There are at least a couple incorrect capitalizations of the o in “Of.” Here’s the first one; you can find the rest (I also incorporated my suggestion about the hyphenated multi-word modifiers):
There are various other minor things I’d consider. I also think there’s an absence of certain substantive material. If you’d like to hire me to do more of this kind of communication consulting for this and/or other projects, let me know.
I agree with the “Services” in the footer. It’s not needed. I thought it was cool. I also agree with page numbers. I’ll change it later on.
I think you are write about clients shouldn’t have to struggle to see/read text. I had shown this to my Mom and I noticed she had difficulty reading it, and she neglected to read further.
You are correct about light on details. It was intentionally done because I didn’t want to reveal trade secrets. Some clients are cunning and they try to rip us off.
hahaha…I agree. I too had some gut feeling that it might be awkward. Your’s is a good start.
I found your responses insightful, and some were quite funny.
Used to but parked it years ago. Still own the domain. I’ve found that I haven’t actually needed it. Just about every project I’ve done in the past 15 years (maybe longer) has been by word of mouth alone. And you’ve already see a sample of my work. Besides, I used to teach and research at a few public universities/colleges, so verifying my bona fides literally takes seconds—the very first result in a Google search of my name is (and was) me:
If you’d like to discuss further, please feel free to direct message me. From there, we can exchange contact info if we decide to work together. No pressure. Either way, thank you for your interest.
