12 tips for flyers and free flyer design templates to create a great flyer
Summary/Overview
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Flyers are a cheap and easy way to communicate news, information about events, and anything else needed to be shared with customers or among community members. Due to their everyday nature, flyer design can sometimes appear sloppy and ill-conceived. In order to attract an audience and make your message memorable, we’ve compiled these tips for creating flyers that are striking and helpful for your business, brand, event, or personal use.
The parts of a flyer
A standard flyer is generally made up of four elements:
- Graphics or pictures
- An attention-grabbing headline
- A focused message
- Location and/or contact info
It’s considered best practice to go by the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where, and why). If your flyer answers those basic questions, then you’re ready to move from content to design.
Types of flyers
Due to their ephemeral nature, flyers are an ideal canvas for advertising one-off events or occurrences related to your brand, business, or social affair. Here are some of the most classic types of flyers being made today:
Public events — fundraisers, parties, art shows, concerts, open mics
Private events — baby showers, weddings, wakes or celebrations of life
Business announcements — store sales, pop-ups, location liquidations, openings
Community actions — protests, marches, holidays, public health programming, school support
Alerts — lost pets, stolen items, neighborhood news
What makes a good flyer?
When making your own flyer, it’s essential to keep in mind the following principles so that they guide your visual design and content marketing.
- Use design elements that attract the eye. Punchy colors, clean minimalist structuring, and monochromatic palettes can all bring in viewers for different reasons. What they have in common is consideration for the aesthetic of the audience.
- State pertinent information clearly for ease of use. This flyer should not be a riddle for the reader. It should be obvious how to absorb and interpret the information you’re presenting.
- The contact information for the business represented by the flyer should be listed so that viewers can access it readily and know who to follow up with should they need further details.
- The flyer answers any of the readers’ possible questions with relevant content, letting them know what to do, where to go, or who to talk to next.
12 actionable tips on how to make a good flyer every time:
Design tips:
- Create a focal point.
What do you want the viewer to see first? Make that the focal point of the flyer and build around it.
- Adopt the Rule of Thirds
Though technically most employed by photographers, the Rule of Thirds breaks up the space of your flyer and directs the eye to the geometric harmony of the visual. It’s a universally pleasing aesthetic concept that be used vertically or horizontally.
- Explore different ways to create harmony, contrast, and structure.
Colors, shapes, fonts, scale, and white space can all be used to change up the look of your flyer to keep it from feeling dull or too uniform. Use color theory to choose contrasting colors. Utilize fun shapes to announce your message. Change the scale of images based on their hierarchy of importance. There’s a million different ways to play with what you’re presenting to the world.
- Consider the personality of what you’re advertising.
Does what you’re advertising have a particular vibe or ambiance? Showcase that feeling by selecting colors or fonts that match it, as well as images that share a similar message. Approach the flyer as an extension of your event, business, or brand.
- Utilize colors that are on message for your brand.
Make sure your flyer design fits with your brand aesthetic or palette by using the same colors you’ve already used in your physical and digital branding, or complementary colors that parallel those previously used colors well.
- Use a template!
If visual design is not usually in your wheelhouse, let Adobe Express be your guide with our extensive library of flyer templates. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, especially when there’s already so many great flyer templates out there to choose from.
Content tips:
7. Focus on a singular message. Flyers have limited space, so save it for the content that it most relevant to what you’re advertising. Once you get people to your event, then you can tell them more about your business or brand.
8. Keep it brief. Text tends to look heavy, so it’s best to stagger text blocks with images and white space so as not to overwhelm the viewer with information. When in doubt, utilize bullet points and infographics to get your point across.
9. Include a call-to-action in your flyer. Let people know where they can follow you and keep up on your brand, and how they can stay involved with your business.
10. Design with your audience in mind. Imagine you are the viewer as you design; use that experience to drive your message and aesthetic.
11. Include contact info for your business and location directions if you’re hosting a physical event. It’s also important to provide accessibility information for your space so anyone with specific mobility needs can know how best to access your space.
12. Proofread! Get a second pair of eyes to look over your work. Even the most practiced of copy editors can miss something, especially when staring at the same image over and over.
