How to start to design flyers?

Soapmarine

New Member
I would like to develop certain creative sensibility to create flyers to be handy for myself and for friends.

I'm learning inDesign and Illustrator, technical part is computing but I'd love to develop the creative eye, that distinguish bad designed flyer from good designed flyer. I'm more interested in promotional flyers like for esteticians and makeup artists (I have a lot of girlfriends in this business and they often need flyer but they are short on budget .)

I look at dozens of flyers everyday but it has to be some golden rules, like simmetrie, two fonts maximum...any advice for newbie?
 
I think the first things to keep in mind is clarity, communicating the message and making the design aesthetics fit the character of their business.

You wouldn't really want a make-up artist's flyer to look like one for a hard garage night at a club.

Things like restricting the number of fonts and choosing and keeping to a colour range are good to keep in mind.
I'd imagine the flyers you're wanting to design would want to have an air of elegance about them.

Try doing a search on Behance and to start to get an idea of what others have done and you could also download some free flyer templates to get you going and give you a feel for layout.
 
The best way to learn is to find a good source of professional work for you to study, it's free and easy to achieve online with websites like Behance and Dribbble. Definitely the worst mistake I see on a regular basis is people putting too much information onto the flyer. It's not a time to tell people every little detail about your business, you need to be mindful of their time, interest, attention span and willingness. Part of this issue is that too many designers allow their clients to take control. Yes, it's their money, but if they don't listen to the designer and insist on having 10,000 words on their A5 flyer then it just defeats the purpose of having a flyer in the first place - some times the biggest challenge in getting flyers to look good is managing the client. And yes, it's more often than not the independent business owners who are looking to do things on the cheap and are used to doing everything themselves...
 
Sean Lee-Amies said:
The best way to learn is to find a good source of professional work for you to study, it's free and easy to achieve online with websites like Behance and Dribbble. Definitely the worst mistake I see on a regular basis is people putting too much information onto the flyer. It's not a time to tell people every little detail about your business, you need to be mindful of their time, interest, attention span and willingness. Part of this issue is that too many designers allow their clients to take control. Yes, it's their money, but if they don't listen to the designer and insist on having 10,000 words on their A5 flyer then it just defeats the purpose of having a flyer in the first place - some times the biggest challenge in getting flyers to look good is managing the client. And yes, it's more often than not the independent business owners who are looking to do things on the cheap and are used to doing everything themselves...
That's happened to me before. Hard to tell how far you go in telling the person giving you money "No".
 
Jimlad said:
That's happened to me before. Hard to tell how far you go in telling the person giving you money "No".
Yeah, I mean, if you're at the point where you're working with these type of clients on such a regular basis that it's beginning to cause a level of frustration that you're not comfortable with, perhaps it's time to look at your marketing strategy and explore ways of attracting new types of clients?

I see it more as educating the client, rather than telling them no, but ultimately if they don't want to be educated then all they are going to hear is "No" anyway, but then I refer back to my original comment.
 
I did a flyer last year for someone, double sided. They insisted I used all of their copy. It was horrible. Two sides FULL of text. I had to squeeze a map on too.

I'd show you how bad it is and what not to do, but I don't want anyone ever seeing it.

:)
 
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