Colors:

It is very important that you understand that certain vibrant colors cannot be correctly printed by the Process Color system used to professionally print full-color brochures. The trouble-prone colors are: royal blue, electric blue, fluorescent green and rich purple. While these colors look great on your computer monitor, if you try to use them in your brochure they'll print out darker and less vibrant.

Failure to understand this concept is the #1 misunderstanding that can lead to costly reprints.

Vibrant colors viewed on computer monitor

Same vibrant colors when professionally printed out.

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To minimize the likelihood of typos in your brochure: Create the copy/text of your brochure in Microsoft Word and use an extra large, sans serif font (like Arial) with a large point size of around 24 points. Errors are much more likely to jump out at you with this larger font size.

Watch out for the usual typo suspects:

• Your vs. You're - People will always mistakenly write something like: "Your doing a great job."
• They're vs. Their
• You vs. Your (a very common error): "Take the cell phone to you father."

Watch out for the all-time typo mistakes: "Pubic" in place of "Public." "Fiend" in place of "Friend." Your spell checker won't catch these

Check for mis-matched phone numbers, especially inverted the phone and fax numbers.

Have friends or co-workers proof your copy/text as a precaution. Two (or more) sets of eyes are better than one.

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Take charge of the deadline process. Take special care when you are depending on one or more outside parties for the copy (text) of the brochure. Many people will put off things to the last minute in spite of having been given a large lead-time to complete the text. If you give someone two months to complete the copy, he/she might be still writing away at 4:23 AM when you have an 8:00 AM drop-deadline to submit the file to the printer. Will you feel like or have time to proof the brochure at 6:00 AM under these conditions?

How to motivate others to get your text/copy to you on time: Tell them that the need to have the text/copy to you by [x] date. The text/copy will go in "as is" on this date...mistakes and all.

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Final Advise: When you sign-off on the proof and give the go-ahead to print, remember that often the printer will not be able to pull the print job after this point. This means that for any critical errors that you discover after the go-ahead to print, the only solution would be to completely reprint the brochures, in essence doubling the price. To minimize the chances of this from happening:

• Have your designer send you a final electronic proof at a very large size (we always do this)
• Recruit friends, family members and co-workers to help you do a final check
• Your last final proof should focus almost exclusively on the text.