5 Common Booklet Design Mistakes you Must Learn to Avoid

By knowing some of the common mistakes that one can commit when printing booklets, you should at least eliminate the chance of failure of your own custom booklets.

When creating your own design for cheap booklets, never just learn what you NEED to do. You should also look for material that tells you WHAT TO AVOID. By knowing some of the common mistakes that one can commit when printing booklets, you should at least eliminate the chance of failure of your own custom booklets.

Below, you should see the list of common design mistakes when you print full color booklets. By allowing yourself to also learn from these mistakes, you can at least avoid those gross errors in your own custom booklets, giving them a better chance of succeeding with your own layouts. So make sure you read carefully the list below and help your own designs for printable booklets.

1. Using the wrong template – One of the more obvious mistakes that you should definitely avoid in color booklet printing is the use of the wrong template. Many amateur designers think that most of the standard booklet templates are easily interchangeable and usable. However, this is wrong as each specific template was designed for a particular distribution method and demographic targeted audience.
If you do not consider these two factors, you will be using wrong styled templates that won’t effectively do your goals in booklet printing. So always be careful and meticulously optimize your choice of booklet template primed for your booklet goals.

2. Cluttering up the cover – Many amateur designers typically commit the mistake of cluttering up their booklet covers. While it is indeed fun to fill out your whole booklet cover with images, text and logos, just like with those grunge type designs, this can end typically in a REAL MESS for your booklet.
When this happens, many readers may not know how to really deal with and read your booklets, leading to them NOT reading your custom booklets at all. So make sure you do resist the temptation in putting too many designs elements in the cover. Make it simple and straightforward and you will be fine.

3. Blank boring backgrounds – If your booklet cover has a white background, or just a plain colored background, you might want to rethink it. While it is cheap and easy to just leave it blank, the growing trend today is with more natural textured looking backgrounds that add to the theme of the booklet print.

This gives those designs a more complete type look, just like with real world materials that have textures and color variations. So it is a mistake to use blank backgrounds, and you should try to avoid it whenever possible.

4. Using odd title fonts – In your booklet titles, it is also a common mistake to use odd font styles, or those that are just a bit too creative and detailed. This is because titles are meant to be easily read and of course easily visible from afar. However, many newcomers actually use more creative and hard to understand fonts just to make their own designs look distinct.

Try to avoid blatantly going for those creative styles. It is best to use more practical sans serif fonts as a base for the title, and then the more creative fonts for subtitles or sub headlines under the title. This gives you a more practical booklet design that will still have its distinct look.

5. Populating with mini-graphics – Take note that it is also a big mistake to use lots of graphics within the content of your booklet design. While it is important to have pictures and graphics to break the monotony of those content in booklets, you should not be filling all pages with borders, line dividers, arrows and other supportive graphics.

A balance must be achieved so that people will not get distracted too much with these emphasizing materials. Remember that the content is still the main thing here that you want to deliver, so take a note of this and avoid this mistake when printing your next batch of customized booklets. Now that you know these common booklet design mistakes, you should be a little bit wiser and better in designing these types of production prints. Just keep on reviewing and your future booklets should do equally well.

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