New project

[BigSmoker]

I need to design a new brocheure for our company. I really need help with the page layout to get started. The finished product needs to be an 8.5"x11"
Any help and suggestions appreciated.

[gwpriester]

Maybe you need to farm the job out to a designer?

There are some basic templates in the Clipart Gallery that you could start with and modify as needed.

[BigSmoker]

The design issue isn't a problem as the wife are one. I know how to lay all of this out in abode but have never used Xara for this type of project. I will have a look at the templates and see if that will work. Thanks.

[amoore]

The first thing I would think about is how you intend to distribute them. For example, if you plan to mail the brochures in US standard number 10 envelopes, a trifold US letter page is probably your best bet. If you're using larger envelopes or not mailing them at all, you have more options.

The second thing is how you intend to produce them. Are you sending them out to a commercial printer? Are you doing them in house on your personal inkjet? Are you looking for glossy paper or matte uncoated? Who's doing the folding? (If you're producing trifold brochures in house, you might want to look into getting a little desktop folding machine.)

Now you can start to think about design. Are you going to fold the brochure, and if so, how? Take a piece of paper and fold it accordingly. It's incredibly useful and informative to actually fold and handle the paper. Study the areas the folds create and roughly sketch out where you want various pieces of info to go. That's especially important for the outside portions.

With the inside, you have more flexibility. You can think in terms of 3 "columns", 2 unequal "columns" (one third/two thirds or vice versa) or the whole page.

Whatever you decide, pay attention to how the folds will affect the content visually. IOW, you may not want a fold running through someone's face, or you may want your text visually centered between the folds or between a fold and a paper edge. The folds do become part of the visual impression.

Stay away from bleeds until you've done brochures a few times. And if you're producing them on a laser or inkjet, you can't do bleeds anyway unless you want to go into the paper trimming business.

Actually, much as I love bleeds, I tend to stay away from them even on marketing materials distributed only via pdf. Some of your prospects will print the pdfs on their personal printers and the results will still reflect on you.

Once I have a rough sense of the layout and feel, the next thing I choose is the typeface/s. Unless the standard Windows fonts best convey the impression you want to give, choose something else that does. The right typeface can do half your design work for you.
It needs to be easily readable and probably friendly. Given your product, you'll probably want a manly font that says "strength" and "reliability".

That and a look at the templates should get you going.

[BigSmoker]

Now we are getting somewhere. This brochure will be mass produced by the 1000's. I will have them printed by a print house. I really didn't word things right before as the bleeds is what I was refering to. Big question is do I manually set them up in Xara? Second is the pages will be front and back so the piece if actual paper will be 17" or so whatever the standard printers paper is. I will call them to find out. They may have a blank template? I will report back progress later. Thanks.

[gwpriester]

You can determine the amount of bleed in the Page Options menu. And it is best to check with your printer to see how much bleed they require and for any other requirements or restrictions they might have.

Your best output option is probably PDF/X. See if your printer can accept these files and what specific format they prefer.

Embedding text can be a problem because many fonts prohibit being embedded without consent or a fee and Xara does not provide this. So the best option is to convert the text to shapes in the PDF/X dialog. Do not do this in your open Xtreme document for the simple reason you may need to edit the text.

Work in Simulated Print view mode: Window > Show Printer Colors > Simulate Print Colors. This will give you a more accurate view of how your colors will appear in CMYK. Unlike Adobe, Xara displays colors in RGB format which is not accurate for CMYK printing.

[amoore]

Yes, you do set up the bleeds manually in Xara. I laid out how to do it in a thread in April: http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...ighlight=bleed

Find out from your printer what bleed margin they want you to use and set up in Xtreme accordingly.

If you're going to 4-color output, there are other considerations such as color space when you're setting up the artwork in Xtreme. Our ad agency does all our 4-color work, soXarans who know more than I do will be able to help you on that.