The Best Booklet Layout & Page Layout Designs

Designing a booklet for the first time can be a little daunting – just how are you going to create a design that makes all that content still look super stylish across multiple pages?

As a Graphic Designer at instantprint, I’m always designing booklets for magazines, catalogues more – and I’ve picked up a few tricks along the way.

So, whether you need help deciding on a layout for your annual report, you’re not sure what size text to use and where to place it for an article, or you just want some ideas on how to use images in a sales brochure, check out my top booklet layout design tips here.
 

1. This design is very balanced – on one side we have a very dark and busy image of the bottles of oil, the other side is light and clean. Both of these pages sell the product but in very different ways. Think about how your pages will look when they’re laid out next to each other like this. I recommend sketching out what you want on each page to help you visualise what your final product is going to look like.
   
    

    

2. Create or Sketch a Draft

   Before you start thinking about colours and fonts, the first thing is to decide the best layout and this depends on what you’re using your booklet for.
   For this, it’s important to remember how booklet page layout works. Say you have a 12pp booklet to design, the first page will be the cover, the second will be the inside cover, the 3rd and 4th page will be a double-page spread and so on.
   
   I’d recommend getting a notebook and using a page of your notebook for each design, making sure the front cover is a page on the right-hand side, so you’d open it up to pages 2 and 3, 4 and 5 and so on as double-page spreads. 

   There are many benefits to sketching out a draft beforehand. This will give you an idea on how much text you’ll need to produce, it will give you a rough framework you can show and share with colleagues and it’ll help your designer work more efficiently.  
   
    

3. Choose Up to Three Fonts

   Depending on how much space you have to fill, you can get really creative with your fonts. I normally follow the three-font rule – one for the main header, one for sub-headings and one for the main body. This helps create a visual hierarchy that tells readers what order to read things in and can be cleverly tailored to push any promotional messaging you might want to get across.
   
   Complementary Fonts
   If you’re not sure what fonts go well together, try and pick a couple of different ones that have different weights, like a bold and a light version. Also, remember your brand – a bubbly font might be perfect for a children’s toy shop, but maybe not for a theatre programme or high fashion magazine.
    
    
    This is a perfect example of the three-font rule – this brochure uses a different font for the headings, subheadings and main body and uses them consistently throughout. Using the capital letters from your chosen font family for headings is a really easy way to make sure they complement each other.

    

4. Whether it’s a customer showcase or a corporate newsletter update about your own business, feature articles are a key component of any magazine. These are usually designed across a double-page spread (or a couple of spreads) and uses images throughout. This business brochure design shows a good balance of interesting supporting imagery, quotes, and written content.
   
    

    

5. Decide on Your Colour Scheme

   We’ve already touched on colour in the previous section because it links so well with the image. And that’s where I’d suggest you start. Look at the picture you plan on using for the page design – can you create a colour scheme using the key colours in the image?
    
    
    
   For example, this magazine article describing the different kinds and benefits of hair oils takes the dark pink shade of the woman’s shirt and makeup in the image and uses it to make the headline stand out. 
   Other brochure designs tend to pick one or two main brand colour and use that to accent different features, like page numbers, banners or headings. Like this article from a sports booklet:
    
    
    

   For more help with colours, here’s how to create a winning colour palette every time.

    

    

I hope these top tricks and tips help you design a stunning booklet. If you need any more help, here are our top 5 eye-catching booklet designs to help inspire your own design. Remember to share your design with us on social media for a chance to be featured on our channel – just tag us using #instantprintuk!