The combination of text and design: a study in creating a full colour leaflet.

Text is central to the message you wish to present.  Our view on design is that it must follow the text.  

We also hold the view that the design must be very cautious with its use of colour.  You can read the arguments about colour in detail here but before you venture in, let me say it is a fairly long and complex piece.

The key issues about colour are that it will reduce your response rate in most cases.  It normally only works where the reader is highly motivated to read on, and so is willing to give over a lot of extra brain power to decipher the colour images.

Now clearly most direct mail arrives on the recipient's desk out of the blue, and normally while the recipient is doing something else.  This is most certainly the case for teachers who usually see the post at break time while trying to get a coffee, escape from the deputy head, and remember what on earth was supposed to happen in the next lesson.

But it is clearly not on to try and advertise a film related product in black and white (unless it were about black and white movies, which this is not).  So we use appropriate tactics.  We clear the front page of most colour and make the headline stark.  We link the illustrations to the text on page 2, and we then give a movie based image on page three which is only seen by people who are already committed to reading, and which in itself reiterates the issue that this is about film.

To see the front and back of the leaflet please click here