I see a lot of camp brochures, especially when I attend camp fairs, and while many of them are better than your typical recreation department activity guides, improvements can be made. Most of them have one thing in common, the cover is not as engaging as it could be. I would show you examples but I don’t want anyone getting offended. Just take a look at yours or some of the other camps in your area.
For the last year I have been chomping at the bit to design our brochures, including the camp one. I knew that the woman who was doing it at the time was getting tired of putting it together and working with the tight deadlines. I am creative in nature, whether it’s camp programs, special events or after school flyers. It’s the details that I’m not very good at. So it was important that we had some good proof readers once I took over the brochure, which I did in January of this year, 2009.
I’m not going to cover the inside pages since many of the times that is a flow issue. If the flow is not good in a brochure it can mess up everything, but that is beyond the scope of this post. I want to discuss the cover. While the brochure I designed is for day camps I think the same guidelines apply to resident camps.
When I took over the design of the brochure/activity guide I wanted the cover to grab the attention of prospective readers. So I wanted it to look like a magazine. The job of a magazine graphic designer is to get people to pick up the magazine, so they know how to grab the customer’s attention. I also wanted people to know about our new camps and where exactly to find them in the guide. With that, I went to the bookstore.
I picked up 6 magazines that I really liked and felt popped out at me. Once I got back to the office I chose one layout that appealed to me the most. For the camp brochure I chose Everyday with Rachel Ray for my inspiration, which is the magazine you see here. I changed it up quite a bit but it gave me the start I needed for the layout.
The next thing I needed to do was choose a picture. I wanted a picture of a kid that was happy, in the outdoors and had some good color. Since the pictures we had were not quite the quality I was looking for I went to my favorite stockphoto site Dreamstime. The great thing about Dreamstime is that the photos are so inexpensive – and most of them are great quality. After browsing for 20 minutes I found the picture I wanted to use.
Now it was time to make the cover. This took some playing around with different fonts and placement until I liked what I saw. Using colors was important as well. The picture I was going to use had a lot of green, too much really, so I wasn’t going to use anymore green. The color of the text had to compliment it though. I went with yellow (which seemed to pop) and a bit of orange.
I’m not a graphic designer. I’ve never taken design classes (though I had thought about going in that direction) and I taught myself how to use Adobe InDesign by watching the video tutorials on a killer website called Lynda.com. With design I look at other examples and find what I like. I take some elements of that design and do what my gut and eyes tell me too. So here is the result.
To see the cover I did, with the help of HD Video Pro magazine take a look at my community recreation site RecreationGuy.com.
17. February 2010 at 4:18 pm
That is a great idea. Looks good. I think I might try that for our brochure this summer. We always do the tri-fold, but I think I want to switch it up.
I also agree with you that giving stuff away at camp fair is a waste.
1. March 2010 at 8:26 pm
Hi Vanessa, we do a brochure because we have a lot of specialty camps. If we had just the one camp then I might stick with the tri-fold. Although, these days, tri-folds get lost in the mix of all the fancy shmanzy marketing materials that camps give out at camp fairs. But when it comes to mailers, I still like the tri-fold.
6. July 2010 at 4:47 am
It’s an OK attempt but let me ask you – will you hire a lifeguard at your camp that is actually a lifeguard or one who took lessons online?
Will you hire a cook who knows how to cook and is a professional or someone that can read the instructions off a box and pop it in the microwave?
What about typography? What about the correct art file formats?
If you want a professionally designed brochure, hire a professional. A magazine design sells articles to expose the reader to ads. A brochure is a whole different thing.
Just because one can point and click does not mean one should.
6. July 2010 at 5:19 am
Should you not attempt to get certified as a lifeguard even though you have never tried before? Should you not give someone a chance to learn how to cook if they have a passion for it? How does someone become a professional? They learn and practice, whether through schooling or trial and error.
I understand what you’re saying, and agree to an extent. Unfortunately, I find that most camps and recreation organizations (which are non-profit) cannot afford professional graphic designers. So they find someone on staff who has an interest in learning how to do it. That’s the way it happened with me. We needed someone who could design the brochure. I volunteered. I taught myself how to use InDesign and Photoshop through online videos at Lynda.com. Then I looked at brochures and activity guides from other organizations, as well as magazine covers, for ideas. I have gotten a lot of praise and compliments on my work and have been hired to do freelance graphic design jobs based on my work.
By the way, I also learned how to cook through books and online articles.