The brief

Design a leaflet for an organisation, inviting people to volunteer for a task.  In addition to the title, the information has been broken down into four chunks, each of about 120 words.  You will need to leave space for contact and address details.  Work with an A4 sheet and explore the different formats for leaflets that are possible.

Spider diagram

First, I have made a spider diagram of the brief to refer to while working on this project.

Visual references

I collected visual references to inspire me and generate ideas.  I find that looking at visual references can spark an entire new idea.  I will create a leaflet to attract people to volunteer at a girls’ school fundraising for the matric dance.  My first idea was to focus on the fundraising, which would be a cake and confectionery sale, but then I changed my focus to the reason for the fundraising.  The more money is raised, the more glamorous the matric dance.  This will be the main goal and message of the flyer.  The leaflet will be handed out to parents at the school.  There is no risk of the card needing to fit into an envelope, and the design can have free form as it won’t be sitting on a shelve.  I included possible colours in my reference board that will suit the leaflet.  Before doing my thumbnail sketches, I established the leaflet format first.

Visualising my thinking

Taking an A4 paper and starting folding is the best way to start.  The paper of the end product should not be expensive to save costs, but I think firm paper of at least 150g will be ideal for this leaflet.  I made my first design out of unprinted newspaper that was too soft.

Design 1

I used the 4-panel accordion fold and tried it with different cut-outs and a slit to hold the front panel in place.  The cloud-looking shapes can be refined later to be the icing on the cupcakes.  The sticker fits nicely to the cut-out of the front and back panels to keep the leaflet contained. 

I like this design, and it can develop into an interesting leaflet with refinement and getting the alignment correct.

Design 2

I folded this leaflet at an angle to create an envelope and a leaflet all in one.  Once you open the leaflet, you have a whole page for your text and illustration.

This is also a lovely option as a leaflet, especially if you use a sheet of paper with one colour on one side and another on the other.  I like the idea of designing a stick that can hold the leaflet together.  The only downside to this design is that once it is opened, it does not look attractive but rather like a piece of paper that needs to be thrown away.

Design 3

The previous design sparked an idea to use multi-coloured paper.  I pasted an orange and pink sheet together to form one sheet of A4 paper.  I then folded it according to a Z-Fold.  I sliced off the bottom right corner and folded the top right corner to form an ear that I glued down.  In picture 3, you see it after folding it open once.  I have sliced off the top right corner of the second panel.

Once you open it and turn it around, you will get template picture 4, and the other side is picture 5.  I have decided to glue the two panels in picture 4 together so you will have picture 3 when opening the leaflet.

Design 4

I was playful with this design and wanted to see where it would take me.  I folded a box with a lid and initially thought I would make paper spirals to hold the top up and show through a circular cut-out in the lid. 

Nothing of this design works except the spiral peeking through the cut-out circle.  I will try it in the following design again.

Design 5

The format of Design 3 and the spiral effect with the cut-out of Design 4 has given me an idea for this design.  This is my favourite design so far.  I think it has a lot of potential, e.g. part of an illustration can peek through the hole to entice the audience to open the leaflet.  Glueing the two panels together in picture 4 can create a pocket for extra information, maybe on a different kind of paper.  The spiral lay nice and flat when closed and when you open it, it creates a three-dimensional effect.  It could be clouds or the waves of the sea.  If I don’t end up using it for the final leaflet, it will be remembered in my sketchbook for a future project.  I like the coloured paper, and the design can be simple in black only to create a three-colour design and keep the costs down.  Picture 1 is the front view of the leaflet, and picture 2 is the opened leaflet with a pocket for extra information.

Design 6

The thought behind this design was to create a small zine that could be used as a leaflet.  It will have eight pages for pictures and information and can be made with A4 paper.  I have taped two A4 pieces together to get a slightly bigger format.  The idea is novel, but the finished booklet is messy and not aligned.  The paper surface is smaller than the other leaflets, and it might be too many pages and fragmented for what I want to achieve for this project.  It could be nice for a comic illustration and to flip the pages while reading the comic.  I might like to use that idea for a future project.

It was very insightful to fold these leaflets, and I will choose Design 5 for further development.  I will now draw thumbnails to determine how I will utilise the space and format. 

Sketchbook drawings

I have decided to go for the drawing in the bottom left corner.  I will further develop this into a young woman attending her matric farewell.  I like the idea on the far right, but it is not glamorous enough for this leaflet.

I have decided not to go with the cake and confectionery idea.   Once my draft was ready (figure 11), I created a template in Adobe Illustrator and created the illustration using the pen tool and the blob brush.  I decided on Poppins as a typeface because it is modern and simple and will work well with the illustration. I made sure my measurements were correct. I want to print it on my home printer to see how the flyer will work as a finished product. I measured the design to work on an A4 paper, allowing for a 3mm bleed,  but I will print it at 96% on my A4 printer.

I have designed the leaflet to fit additional information into the pocket once it is folded and glued.  I created a mockup to show the correct colours in figure 14.  The prototype I have printed on my home printer does not have the right colour but gives a good idea of how it will work as a leaflet.  The contact and address details are on the back panel.

I have decided not to use the spiral effect as it interfered with the lettering.

I am pleased with the leaflet, but I will use different text sizes next time to make the paragraphs more interesting.  I kept the heading around the cut-out because that is where the eye goes first.  A spiral of text with different size fonts could work nicely around the cut-out.  I like the transparent paper in the pocket.  It gives an interesting tactile effect to the leaflet.  It could be nice to use black letters in between the paragraphs with the same texture as the star background to make the text and illustration more cohesive.  It would be nice to have this leaflet printer at professional printers on the correct paper and colour.  

Next time I have a project like this, I would rather have it printed professionally.  I don’t think it is worth the time to redo the illustration in vectors in Adobe Illustrator.  The illustration looks the same as the draft to me.  I know it will make a difference when it is printer professionally and needs to be scaled to a large format, but for the sake of this prototype, I don’t think it was necessary.  Adobe Illustrator was the correct software to design the template.