PAPON-Magazine: Creation of a brochure during studies
"We're making the brochure": This was the beginning of a rather long process that I and my fellow student Fadi had underestimated a little.
The creation of a brochure, from the texts to the finished booklet. How do I do it? What should I pay attention to?
These were the questions we (my fellow student and flatmate Fadi and I) asked ourselves at the beginning. We were supposed to produce a final brochure for the module "Rhetoric, Journalistic Work, Marketing and PR". We had volunteered for this because we were often interested in the graphic aspects of our studies.
It all started in 2020, when all students were supposed to write a longer article a module in the 5th semester as a final assignment. These articles were then to be used in a brochure. Two students should take on the role of graphic designers who would design the brochure. They did not have to write an article 😉.
Chapter 1: Inspiration
Our lecturer gave us the booklets of previous years for inspiration. So at the beginning, Fadi and I looked at the booklets and checked what we liked and what we didn't like. We also looked at other printed matter. Among others, the graphic magazine NOVUM, but also classic magazines like ZEIT Verbrechen and, of course, we looked at different internet sources, for example on Pinterest. We then put our ideas together in a mock-up. We then gave this to our fellow students and our lecturer as a first interim status in order to be able to give feedback. Both accepted our proposal.
First mock-up for the design
Chapter 2: Prepare InDesign Document
After the first mock-up, we let the work rest for a while. We had to wait for the articles of our fellow students. During this time, we already created the InDesign document, adopted the design, created templates and improved the design in a few places.
After the work and the deadline of our fellow students' articles had passed, the articles arrived via our lecturer and we could start with the actual work.
Page template with dummy text
in InDesign
Chapter 3: Bringing structure to the articles
After we had most of the articles, we could start to think about a structure or grouping for the articles. We thought of 4 categories, into which we could place all the articles:
- Work and study
- Modern Technologies
- Application Development
- Communication and business management
Chapter 4: Filling the Document
After that we started to bring the texts into our InDesign document. To do this, we went through the texts several times:
1) First insert everything: You start with the simple insertion of all content: The text, possibly photos and diagrams etc. that came with the text. For one text, it looked like this:
Example page after step 1
2) Check the fit of the items: In order to create a good overall picture in the end, no large white or free areas should remain. To achieve this, you have to do the impossible: Texts of completely different lengths must fit into the same frame. To do this, you check: How does the text fit on the page? Is it too long? Too short? Can we enlarge or reduce photos, diagrams, etc.? Can we find other photos from stock sites that go well with the article?
This step is one of the longest. There is a lot of trial and error in fitting the texts well on the pages.
3) Photos and diagrams: Some of the texts had good photos and diagrams that we could use directly. For the majority we had to "work our magic". Photos and diagrams were unsuitable, of poor quality or did not fit our look. For photos, we looked on sites like Unsplash for photos that would fit. Diagrams we mostly recreated in Illustrator. Here is an example:
Example of a revised graphic (on the left the original and on the right our adapted version)
In the end, the example of just then looked final like this:
Example page after layouting
By the way, the article of a fellow student who evaluated a survey took by far the most time. On the one hand, we had to reproduce all the diagrams, but we also had to position the texts so that there were no text breaks, the diagrams were in the right place, and everything fit nicely on the pages.
Chapter 5: Details and gimmicks
While working through the texts, we noticed a few places where we wanted to include some special features. Here are a few examples:
- The exposed cord of the VR glasses
- The text that moves along the face
- And the high-contrast double-page spread comparing PS5 vs. Xbox Series X
Examples of specially designed pages
Chapter 6: The finishing touches and printing
In the end, we then carried out various smaller jobs:
- Subsequent changes incorporated
- Added a foreword from our course director and lecturer
- Widows and orphans removed
- Added advertising
- created credits, picture credits and imprint
Finally, there was the printing. We had it printed by WirmachenDruck. The printing was paid for by one of our fellow students' practice partners. The finished prints were then handed out to our fellow students at the graduation ceremony.
Chapter 7: Conclusion
In the end, the entire process from registering for the task to issuing the booklets took more than a year: With the creation of drafts; layouting the texts; editing, selecting and rebuilding the graphics and photos; test printing; agreements with lecturers, the university division management, the advertising partner and the printing company and several waiting times in between (also due to Corona).
At the end of the project there were many, many hours of drafting, designing and creative discussion with Fadi. Fadi and I were able to learn a lot about creating print documents. From dealing with InDesign and the other programs, to designing, to the right settings that need to be chosen.
To the Instagram of my good friend Fadi Azzam: fadi.azzam_ auf Instagram
