Is brochure design still relevant in an increasingly digital landscape?
It’s a fair question. Marketing budgets have shifted heavily toward digital, and it’s easy to assume print has had its day. But the honest answer is: it depends entirely on what you’re trying to achieve, and who you’re trying to reach.
Digital marketing is unbeatable for reach, speed, and measurability. A website or social campaign can be updated in minutes, targeted precisely, and tracked to the click. A brochure can’t compete on any of those terms, and it isn’t trying to.
What a brochure offers instead is something digital simply can’t replicate: a physical, considered object that a customer can hold, revisit, and share. For certain types of purchase decisions, particularly high-value, high-consideration ones like a new home, a luxury car, or a bathroom renovation, that matters more than most people expect. These aren’t impulse purchases made from a single scroll through a website. They’re decisions that often involve more than one person, take place over weeks or months, and benefit from something tangible to return to along the way.
A well-designed brochure also does something a webpage can’t: it signals quality before a single word is read. The weight of the paper, the finish, the way it’s bound, all of it communicates a level of care and investment that reflects directly on the brand behind it. That’s precisely why brochures remain a fixture in sectors built on trust and premium positioning, from property developers to car showrooms to high-end interiors.
So no, brochure design isn’t obsolete. It’s simply no longer the default; it’s a deliberate choice, reserved for the moments where a physical, tactile experience genuinely adds value that digital alone can’t provide.
Rich photography and considered layout give the products room to breathe, letting the quality speak for itself.
The front cover was designed to reflect Mrs Darlington’s warm, authentic brand personality from the very first page.
Paper stock and finish were chosen carefully to reflect the premium, handcrafted feel of the brand.
Take Mrs Darlingtons, a Cheshire-based brand we’ve worked with here at Red Fred. When we designed their brochure, the goal wasn’t just to list products, it was to tell the story behind the business: the people, the passion, and the quality that goes into every jar. A brochure gave us room to do that properly, pairing rich imagery with genuine storytelling in a way that feels personal rather than transactional, exactly the kind of connection that’s hard to build through a website alone.
How to get it right if you do want to create a brochure.
Below is how we at Red Fred Creative would advise you.
Start at the end.
Decide how the brochure will be distributed. Will it be used at an exhibition, within a showroom or sent out in the post? Printed collateral will generally go out of date quickly so having a strategy distribution certainly helps to maximise the effectiveness. It will also help you decide what quantity to print or what offers to publish.
Set the goal for the brochure design
Define what you want to achieve with the brochure. Are you entering a new market or do you have new products to tell your clients about? Do you need to include technical information or is this more of an emotional proposition? What information are your customers looking for and what style would appeal to them? Think about what you want a customer to do once they have read the brochure and make it easy for them to do so.
Consider a page plan
Planning can be really useful for ensuring that you have adequate space. Prioritising content is a very useful tactic and it helps to allow enough room for your content to breath. Ideally the brochure shouldn’t feel crammed full of information. Consider the critical information that you want to get across and ensure it aligns with the goal of the brochure.
Gather your assets.
Brand assets such as logos will probably be the first things on the list. If you have brand guidelines these will also be useful for a brochure designer. Next will be the written content and images. Written content, or copy, should be signed off prior to passing it to the design team. Images should be high resolution and high quality. Remember that images that are generally found on website’s will have a lower resolution. A brochure designer will most likely want the original images.
Brief the designer
You have everything you need to brief the designer. Provide them with the assets and ensure they understand the target market and goal for the brochure. Discuss the page plan and give them time to consider the project. Red Fred Creative prefer to create an initial double page spread and the front cover to set the style for the brochure. The client is then invited to offer feedback and approve the concept before we roll this out. There will be other opportunities for feedback but this method avoids costly reworking.
At Red Fred, we love creating graphic designs for annual reports, brochures and booklets. If you have brochure project you’d like to discuss with us please get in touch.
Learn more about our graphic design services.
