Brochure Folds, Part 1: The Crescendo

There are many ways you can fold a brochure. The fold you choose should be based on how you want to walk your audience through the material you are presenting.

The standard trifold is the most common; 6 panels and 2 folds. You begin with the cover which has to be interesting enough to get your audience to open the brochure. Once they do, now they have 2 panels of information before them. On the left is the first of what will be a continuous 3-panel spread, and the right panel, or overleaf, usually contains highlights of the rest of the brochure. The left panel is your lead into the bulk of the brochure content. Both are important. Finally you have the back cover which is sometimes used for a self-mailer. If not then it usually contains the information that your audience wants after you've sold them on your product or service such as contact information or a map to your location(s).

An extention of the trifold is the roll fold. The roll fold is just like a trifold except with more panels: 8, 10, 12, etc. It opens just like the trifold but keeps opening as the panels roll open. This format provides you with more overleaf panels and once you have it all the way unfolded leaves you with a wide spread of core information. If the brochure is big enough, this unfolded side of the brochure could be used as a poster. If you do intend on a poster, be sure that all relevent information is included on the poster side of the brochure so your audience doesn't have to take it off the wall to find a telephone number.

Similar to the roll fold is the parallel fold. You start with at least 8 panels. Used effectively, this can trump the roll fold for unveiling your content. Used haphazardly, without specific design reasons for how this type of brochure unfolds (which is most cases that I've seen) the brochure can result in a clumcy presentation of your information. Roll folds also can unfold nicely into an elongated poster. What I like most about parallel folds (and gate folds that we'll cover in Part 2) is that the presentation escalates from 1 panel (the cover), to 2 panels, to 4 panels, to 8 panels or more (the poster). This adds a crescendo effect to the design.

Tell me what your favorite brochure format is.

Next in Part 2: Gate and Accordian Folds

Next in Part 3: French Folds and Die Cuts

Next in Part 4: The eBrochure: Designing Website Navigation