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Beautiful Brochures and Booklets
June 16th, 2008 in Monday Inspiration | 135 Comments
In corporate design brochures and booklets are a standard tool for promotion and advertising. They are tiny books or magazines which lay around in conference halls, offices and waiting rooms. Sometimes they contain an annual report of the company or showcase the portfolio of an artist. Brochures can also be included in CDs and DVDs; however, usually they are given away as freebies (e.g. they may contain a calendar or some poster inside).
In either case, booklets serve advertising purposes and since they are usually short (max. 25-30 pages) they need to look good and be informative in order to focus users’ attention and effectively convey the message. Unfortunately, only few brochures are indeed designed with close attention to details. However, there are a number of options for creative and appealing booklet and brochure design.
This post showcases beautiful examples of brochure and booklet design. We have tried to include creative, visually appealing and interesting design solutions; the booklets presented below are nice to have in the hand and take with you. Hopefully, everybody will find something interesting and unusual for herself or himself.
You may want to take a look at our related posts
- Beautiful and Expressive Packaging Design
- Excellent Book Covers and Paperbacks
- Breathtaking Typographic Posters
- Award-Winning Newspaper Designs
- Data Visualization and Infographics
Brochures and Booklets
Urban Picnic
Ant and blanket pattern graphics are used to interperet the common picnic in this event brochure for Architecture Week. Using architecture stencils as the basis for the typography, the brochure has contrasting colours which reflect building materials. The choice of colors is impressive and eye-catching: this is what makes a good brochure design. Created by Rob Brearley, RGB design studio.
Alpha_Txt
ALPHA_TXT has developed into Typeface that represents the evolution of the English language. It reflects the way that we communicate due to our global society. ALPHA_TXT reflects this issue by abbreviating individual characters in the English alphabet. It is governed by same rules imposed as SMS messaging on a mobile telephone keypad. Designed by Viv Greywoode.
2008 Calendar
A pretty colorful calendar concept. Each month color is associated with a month — e.g. blue stands for January and red stands for July. The last page contains contact references to designer’s portfolio. That’s an effective brochure design. Designed by Jonathan Davies.
Premsela Booklets
Catchy colors meet dark booklet meet beautiful typography meet grids. Appealing editorial design by Robin Uleman.
Capital Jest Booklet
Well, this is a sexy design. Notice how well tiny square at the right bottom corner of the cover stand for the corporate identity of the company: altough being tiny, they are very distinctive and attractive. Corporate & brand identity by studio FIRMA for company Capital Jets, specialized in business aviation. Included creating logo, full brand identity, web design, copywriting, design of exhibition stands, corporate stuff, booklets, design of corporate cars and airplanes. Designed by Firma.
Avant Garde Gothic Typeface Booklet
Features 27 pages containing information on Herbert Lubalin, the establishment of the ITC, type-classification, font-weights, ligatures and much more. Designed by Bora Acemi.
Jeannette Weber
Die anderen - Leben in Marxloh. Minimalism, beautiful information design.
ERF
Designed by BaseDesign agency.
Usinesonore
Designed by ultra.li.
Kiosk 37
Designed by Luke Lisi, Ben Suh, Laura Rottinghaus, Tristan Telander and Chi Hiu Yim from the University of Kansas Design Program (thanks, dls).
Restaurants Identity book
No, it doesn’t really matter what is insde the brochure. The cover is striking and appealing and hence manages to attract readers’ attention. Unfortunately, we do not know how the brochure look like from inside out.
Helvetica 50 project workbook
Blank workbook designed for Graphic Communication 3rd year Digital Media brief - exhibition design for the 50th birthday of Helvetica. Designed by Breakmould design agency.
Silkroad
This is a brochure/poster for The Silkroad Project. The musical ensemble focuses on creating a flow of connectivity amongst different cultures across the world. This brochure has lines running and connecting through each fold and then folds out into a poster that acts as a calendar. Simple yet beautiful. Designed by Megan Brock.
Car Color Timeline
The objective behind this piece was to come up with a method to organize information as simple as the color of cars in the most effective and interesting way. Using a timeline system, the structure of Art Center’s Hillside parking lot was organized in step-by-step panels.
The timeline starts with raw data taken from photos and information gathered from each individual car. The data is then broken down into abstract shapes and optical mixing, giving the viewer various choices depending on their personal visual preference. At the end the data is compiled in a fairly generic information graphic. Winner of Adobe Education 2007 Award. Designed by Aaron Kapor.
BibliotequeDesign
Original brochure design by a London-based design agency BibliothequeDesign. Take a look at the examples below: the agency combines strong typography with geometric forms and catching colors. And the result is pretty catching as well.
Rizzo + Gobart
Art Direction for this flyer/poster for the promotion of “Les hyperréalistes en France” exhibition at the Catherine et André Hug Art gallery. Designed by Xavier Encinas.
Sheridan & Co Brochure
Minimalism meets catchy colors. This is a booklet one would like to take with himself / herself. Designed by Un.titled.
Virtual Water
Based on the data gathered by Hoeckstra et al. in their study »Water Footprint of Nations« German designer Timm Kekeritz created this double-sided poster and an accompanying brochure. One side visualizes the water footprint of selected nations, emphasizing the im- and export of virtual water. The other side shows the virtual water content of selected foods and commodities.
Alba Product Folder
This booklet is definitely hard to overlook. Designed by A-Side Studio.
Altus
The concept focuses on putting the viewer in the position to imagine their perfect home with no images to cloud the potential buyers mind. Instead this brochure features pop-ups to enforce that living at Altus puts you above everything. The combination of textured paper, pop-ups and horizontal lists of various building and neighbourhood amenities lead to a brochure that genuinely display the uniqueness of the product. Designed by Andrew MacPhee.
Alphabet City 2007
A promotional booklet.
Cornwall Film
Scott Parker Design Limited.
Annual report for Bank of Moscow
Designed by Danil Kryvoruchko.
Four IV
Brochures can not only look good: you can use fabric to make the reader feel the high quality of the brochure as well. Example: the AlphabetCity brochure displayed below.
BB/Saunders
BB/Saunders agency combines a very modern look with creative design solutions. Apparently, the agency loves cirlces, dots and strange geometrics shapes.
Neuelaboratories
We have no idea what this image stands for. But maybe it was the designer’s decision to make us feel like this in this brochure?
Peter&Wendy
Peter&Wendy studio has its own unusual style when it comes to brochure design. The grid in the background and strong, bold typography make the brochure stand out; consequnce: the booklet is distinctive and hard to overlook.
Benance Network Promo
Booklet containing information and research found during experimentation of Visualising Networks. The aim of the booklet is to promote the benefits of networking in this day and age, from students through to career professionals. The booklet is displayed with the instalation piece and is intended to be taken away with the viewer to keep.
Rizzo + Gobart
Art Direction for this flyer/poster for the promotion of “Les hyperréalistes en France” exhibition at the Catherine et André Hug Art gallery. Designed by Xavier Encinas.
HelloLiz
What difference does it make who’s speaking? This brochure is a compendium of research on four different, but inter-related topics. Notes and essays concerning the ‘designer as author’ debate as well as the current state of art education are intermingled with personal investigation of self and the surrounding student community at MCAD. Unusual treatment of type, unusual booklet.
Verto Booklet
Classic and traditional brochure design which is often used for interior design promotions. Simple yet beautiful, this bookmarklet perfectly manages to communicate with its target group. Designed by Dmitry Galsan.
BabeRF
In April of 2007, 50 artist bookmakers from Bristol and around the world came together at the Arnolfini art gallery to show and sell their work. Ginger Monkey was asked to create an identity for this event that focused on the artistry and hand crafted techniques used to create the books. He came up with a grungy and dirty result which lets the brochure stand out.
Glossyzine
These excerpts show that an annual report doesn’t have to be boring. However, it doesn’t have to be colorful neither. Used properly, black, white and typography can suffice.
Value and Service
Brochures can be printed not on simple paper, but on other materials. The booklet below shows how geometric shapes can be used to let the brochure not only look, but feel distinctive.
De Facto
Designed by De Facto.
September Industry
Strong grid structure meets strong typography.
Nexus Neuronia
Brochure design doesn’t have to end with the deign inside out.
Last Click
Circle
No, this is not a booklet design. But if it was a booklet, it would be a damn sexy one.
Siggi Oddsson
Unfortunately, Siggi Oddsson rarely designs brochures. Maybe he should. We would like to have the one with the image below.
Gemstones
The same holds for Sveinn Porri Davíðsson…
Terrace Exhibition Proposal
This is probably the sexiest form you ever saw. It was created by Ewan Robertson of Oscar And Ewan for Terrace Studios, a gallery in Dalston, London. The project includes identity, design and a website.
Rainbow in your hand
That’s creative. Flipbook with 36 black pages. When you flip through the book, a 3D rainbow will appear inside your hand.
Sources and Resources
- 6 sites for brochure design inspiration
- Graphic-Exchange
A blog dedicated to booklet and brochure design. - Margins and Columns
A brochure design blog. - Tables of Contents Showcase
- Grafis Collection
- Swiss Legacy
- Turn PDFs into Printable Booklets with BookletCreator
dragoshell (June 16th, 2008, 2:04 am)
wow…. hell, there are a lot of wonderful brochures :)
gforce (June 16th, 2008, 2:12 am)
wow..
ferdinand (June 16th, 2008, 2:13 am)
wow this is a real extensive list. I wonder how you find all these gems. fyi you’ve written “month” instead of “colour” in the description of Calendar 2008.
smashing post as always!
gforce (June 16th, 2008, 2:13 am)
good!
Alex (June 16th, 2008, 2:26 am)
God, you guys rock!
kesav (June 16th, 2008, 2:50 am)
great, as usual!
Helen (June 16th, 2008, 2:56 am)
They are all beautiful but somehow looks as if they could be designed by the same person. Is there just one style now…? Big clean type and clean colors sort of. With some variation.
Carlton Dickson (June 16th, 2008, 2:59 am)
Excellent designs!
Ivan (June 16th, 2008, 2:59 am)
Great post! Don’t know if you seen but take a look at Link [www.dezeen.com] by Link [www.bruketa-zinic.com]
Ben Jacob (June 16th, 2008, 3:00 am)
Nice print inspiration as usual..
leszek pietrzak (June 16th, 2008, 3:03 am)
Stunning design :-o
Jeffrey (June 16th, 2008, 3:08 am)
Nice stuff…But I do see a bit too much of Helvetica based postmodernised Swiss style brochures. Though I do like the look of it this style has definately been done to dead right now… Time for something new!?
Gilberto Saraiva (June 16th, 2008, 3:27 am)
very inspirative!!
SerbianRenegade (June 16th, 2008, 3:28 am)
WOW , excellent designs!
Jay (June 16th, 2008, 3:30 am)
Great one! Thanks.
angelo (June 16th, 2008, 3:39 am)
amazing…
Greg Ponchak (June 16th, 2008, 3:49 am)
I honestly think that was my favorite post. Ever.
Great work!
TmiY (June 16th, 2008, 3:51 am)
Oh shit, some very nice designs here. Good inspiration, Thanks guys!
prathap (June 16th, 2008, 4:09 am)
excellent listing
crypta (June 16th, 2008, 4:20 am)
really beautiful
latejedora (June 16th, 2008, 4:27 am)
I really do love your monday inspiration posts!!!
beepoll (June 16th, 2008, 4:54 am)
Now, that is SMASHING!
Diogo (June 16th, 2008, 5:20 am)
Great post!
OverZero.it (June 16th, 2008, 5:21 am)
Speechless.
Rob Hoffmann (June 16th, 2008, 5:27 am)
Sick nothing better than reading Smashing with my Monday morning coffee :)
shido (June 16th, 2008, 5:28 am)
love this !
Orion (June 16th, 2008, 6:46 am)
Yes, cool designs and I like your posts, but you need to add in a break to the RSS feed so I don’t have to scroll through all 12-bazillion pages in Google Reader if I don’t feel like looking at your collection of beautiful designs right now. Thanks.
Michael (June 16th, 2008, 7:09 am)
Best article in a while !
Jason (June 16th, 2008, 7:31 am)
*Yawn*….
Ilaria (June 16th, 2008, 7:34 am)
That’s really creative! :)
ra (June 16th, 2008, 7:41 am)
Amazing and Inspiring list…
Patrik Ilola (June 16th, 2008, 7:48 am)
Great post! Thank you very much!
Chad Doan (June 16th, 2008, 7:48 am)
One of the best posts of the month!
I really like the box design for circle.
dls (June 16th, 2008, 7:49 am)
Great post! Should be noted that Kiosk 37 was designed by Luke (note Kule) Lisi as well as Ben Suh, Laura Rottinghaus, Tristan Telander and Chi Hiu Yim. This is an extra curricular group from the University of Kansas Design Program. One of my favorite Kiosks in many years.
Cosmi (June 16th, 2008, 8:18 am)
Great !
Johannes Aagaard (June 16th, 2008, 8:22 am)
Wow all this brochurs are so awesome - nice use of colours!
Bora Acemi (June 16th, 2008, 8:39 am)
WOW, I was amazed when I saw that you’ve published MY Avant Garde Booklet! It was kind of a shock to see this on Smashing Magazine! :)
For more information on this booklet you can also visit my website Link [www.boraacemi.com]
trav (June 16th, 2008, 8:48 am)
too bad most brochures are plain jane and usually not very good. thanks for showing really good and deserving brochures!
Ronny (June 16th, 2008, 8:49 am)
I love this collection. Plenty of flashy and bright colors! That’s how I like it!
LP (June 16th, 2008, 9:00 am)
Awesome inspiration. Possible to get info on where to purchase some of these?
CHOCHO (June 16th, 2008, 9:25 am)
Don’t forget those are brochures and booklets corporates. I don’t think it will be great have dirty, grungy and splatter. And all these are sure big budget work. Look at pop-up booklet… And there are many unique formats and printing technique that simply can’t be achieved if you do not have that money.
I am glad to see little photography used.
Danmei (June 16th, 2008, 10:31 am)
impressive brochures….get lots of inspirations from them!
Rogers (June 16th, 2008, 11:10 am)
this is true inspiration for me, because design brochure is my main job! Thank YOU Smashing Magazine!
Parker (June 16th, 2008, 12:04 pm)
Some really great stuff as always, anyone know any online printers that can do that accordion style?
Luiz Gustavo F. Zanotello (June 16th, 2008, 1:15 pm)
I simply love u guys. xD
mac_fun (June 16th, 2008, 1:20 pm)
Amazing! The pop-up one is especially creative
super_freak (June 16th, 2008, 1:29 pm)
First!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Drew (June 16th, 2008, 1:37 pm)
good grief….. that’s some nice stuff.
You're Smashing Dudes (June 16th, 2008, 2:02 pm)
Smashing as usual. One of these gave me an awesome idea for a website I’ve been struggling to find a good concept for.
Thank you!
Lily (June 16th, 2008, 2:37 pm)
Amazing! I am designing an art catalog - this is just what i needed!!!!!
Toby Lynch (June 16th, 2008, 2:47 pm)
Great selection!
therapix (June 16th, 2008, 5:03 pm)
Nice, but where’s my monday inspiration????
iqranegara (June 16th, 2008, 7:55 pm)
turn my brain on
Greg (June 16th, 2008, 8:27 pm)
Wow, talk about inspiration!! I lost my job last week and decided to finally launch a Mfg’s Rep / Marketing Agency. Which means I have to try to get in front of a large number of business owners in a short amount of time. I was trying to figure out some way to make them take notice - one of these designs gave me the idea I need. Thanks for the inspiration!!
gr8pixel (June 16th, 2008, 9:23 pm)
wow… those are really good!! thanks for sharing!!
Sebastian (June 16th, 2008, 10:20 pm)
whow, they are beautiful!
ananda rizki ramdani (June 16th, 2008, 10:57 pm)
awesome! nice post ;)
Max (June 16th, 2008, 11:14 pm)
These are truly beautiful.
I love beautiful booklets!
Looked at Alexa this morning, just for fun tried Smashingmagazine. Doing pretty good…
The Webinale Awards really gave you a boost!
Ash (June 16th, 2008, 11:32 pm)
Very beautiful !
Dawood (June 16th, 2008, 11:50 pm)
Is it just me, or did anyone else think that must of those stunk?
Didier Lahely (June 17th, 2008, 1:45 am)
Totally agree. Copy paste copy paste… ; (
Emre (June 17th, 2008, 3:02 am)
super duper
Hinduismnet.com (June 17th, 2008, 3:12 am)
Thanks for the inspiration… the post rocked as usal.
DavidM (June 17th, 2008, 4:15 am)
@Dawood - I don’t think they stunk, but the designs were mostly just copies of copies - I saw little originality in any of them. How many big type Helvetica Neue brochures do we need to see on one page? Just need to pick up any edition of Grafik magazine and you have the source of each one of those brochures… sigh
Сергей Городенский (June 17th, 2008, 6:24 am)
Eto pizdec (Wow, beauteful set)
ardomanish (June 17th, 2008, 6:39 am)
aaaaoooowwwww very gooooooood :)
rpsms (June 17th, 2008, 6:46 am)
While most of them are attractive, they are almost all covered with busy staffage that inhibits communication.
post-modern is more descriptive than avant-garde: lots of adjectives and meaningless jargon that covers for the lack of anything of substance.
Nethanel Kalish (June 17th, 2008, 10:01 am)
Those WOWs around probably come from teen-agers with no real artistic education.
I’m very dissapointed to say that I did see even one design with any hint een of new massage.
Prifessinaly well done is not exciting. All items in this collection can be found in the sixtys and before.
It is very disapoiting that nothing happend in Art for more than 40 years now. No new views, no new sound, no new concepts.
There is only technical improvements. No message. Very dissapointing.
Sorry.
Andreas (June 17th, 2008, 10:07 am)
More print inspiration please :) Great post! (as usual)
john (June 17th, 2008, 12:15 pm)
mr. kalish is not happy
Cesar (June 17th, 2008, 12:36 pm)
There is too many beautiful brochures. A good job.
Yeah John, tha’s right.
Thomas Bollinger (June 17th, 2008, 1:48 pm)
Why is it that almost none has a commercial goal and/or background? That’s all artsy fuzz, paid for by the taxpayer or institutions that are paid by the taxpayer.
yi (June 17th, 2008, 2:09 pm)
xxx
veera (June 17th, 2008, 8:44 pm)
Great post!!
Arun (June 17th, 2008, 10:57 pm)
yours All Post Are Grt And This Tooo……
Marcin Dmoch (June 18th, 2008, 2:01 am)
It looks very well, thanks :)
Ben (June 18th, 2008, 2:18 am)
Great stuff! Really great stuff.
Niroj Shahi (June 18th, 2008, 3:30 am)
It’s great.
Tom Mayers (June 18th, 2008, 4:23 am)
Holy Helvetica!
hassan_nasrallah (June 18th, 2008, 7:59 am)
where is the content?
All i see is empty space.
I thought brochures and booklets were supposed to convey some information …
this is all masturbation.
Marcin (June 18th, 2008, 7:22 pm)
totally agree
David (June 19th, 2008, 6:20 am)
great shit!!
Sharwan (June 19th, 2008, 9:19 am)
I love these!
Alexander Shurman - Yu (June 19th, 2008, 2:34 pm)
Amazing! brochures and booklets
Excellent designs!
Thank you guys Vitaly and Sven
Franc (June 19th, 2008, 4:38 pm)
These brochures are beautiful but that’s seem to come from a world without clients and deadlines. It’s easier to do design like this than real brochures for real small clients with no money and no time…
Hammad (June 20th, 2008, 3:41 am)
There is a TYPO in ,.b”Capital Jest Booklet” os should called ” JETS “ not Jest!
nepalsites (June 22nd, 2008, 8:55 am)
very nice works. would have liked to see the non traditional shaped brochures as well though.
Woke (June 23rd, 2008, 1:01 am)
Some of them are definitely interesting. But it is very difficult to judge brochures by seeing a couple of snapshots.
Most of the descriptions are downright sloppy - “This is a booklet one would like to take with himself / herself.” ??
Marta (June 23rd, 2008, 5:04 pm)
Very, Very, beautiful designs !!! Amazing !!!
Jurjen (June 24th, 2008, 5:50 am)
Cool. Very inspiring…
Scott (June 24th, 2008, 7:38 am)
The Helvetica/Bold Sans Serif based design movement came in with a bang and is starting to feel a little like the dead horse syndrome experienced a few years ago with “swoop” logos.
Yes, this style is BEAUTIFUL and lends itself to great design approaches when appropriate, but it is starting to be a but over used. As Designers we need to build off ideas, not duplicate them outright.
Overall this is a GREAT set of design examples, but I do wish there was just a wee bit more spectrum to showcase other styles.
Great Job Smashing, wonderful collection, really enjoy the site.
thai (June 25th, 2008, 4:50 am)
I AM STUNNED
rahulmax (June 25th, 2008, 5:22 am)
Whoa! awesome!!!! but still the copies of copies of copy…
@Scott: Totally agree with ya! even the Helvetica ultra thin’s also a bit like that, now..
@hassan_nasrallah: WTF dude?? go somewhere else..
JSHAW (July 6th, 2008, 2:11 pm)
this post is so inspirational i love it! thanks so much!
Simon (July 6th, 2008, 5:44 pm)
This is an awesome source of inspiration, nice guys!
Barbara Kolb (July 21st, 2008, 9:56 am)
yes… really homogenous collection. In the wide world of visual communication via print, its unthinkable to filter for a certain style/pallet… and all this retro 60s stuff is getting really tired.
D L (July 21st, 2008, 12:47 pm)
Can anyone tell me how to make the image used for ‘Circle’ (the one with a Big Yellow ‘C’ on it) please?
Just starting out on illustrator and wondering how. I’m guessings its something to do with masking, but dunno. Some help would be nice, but i understand if this is the wrong place to ask.
Thanks
eddy (August 20th, 2008, 4:16 am)
any one know were to download sample PDF?? similar to those