Brochure Sizes

Brochures are still an important marketing tool despite the onset of online advertising. Most people would still prefer to have something tangible to read and refer to when looking for specific products or services.

With the onset of online advertising however, it is very important to come up with a brochure that will be more appealing to your target market. This means that the concept and lay-out should be designed in a way that will instantly catch the attention of your target audience.

Considering brochure sizes is also just as important. The brochure size should be such that you can put all the information you want your market to know without making it look cluttered and disorganized – two factors that can easily turn off your market.

Typically, there are three standard brochure sizes that you can choose from: Letter Size, Legal Size and Tabloid Size.

What Do These Sizes Mean?

The sizes are basically determined by the paper size that you can commonly find in book stores and office supplies shops. A Letter Size brochure uses paper that measures 8.5 inches in width by 11 inches in length.

A Legal Size brochure on the other hand, uses a type of paper that measures 8.5 inches in width by 14 inches in length; while the Tabloid Size refers to paper size that measures 11 inches in width by 17 inches in length.

These paper sizes allow you to print your own brochure straight from your own printer. Usually, custom-sized brochures require other printer sizes which you can find in printing shops or companies who specialize in designing and printing marketing tools like brochures, flyers and larger-sized print ads.

Brochure Styles

Determining the size of your brochure is just the first step when considering brochure dimensions. Your next consideration is the style of the brochure. With the paper size in mind, you can now decide whether you want a bi-fold, tri-fold or full sheet type of brochure.

With bi-fold brochures, also known as half-fold or book fold; you fold your preferred paper size in half. If you use a Letter Size paper, your half-fold brochure will measure approximately 5.25 inches in width by 8.5 inches in length for each panel.

You can see that double the above-given measurements, they do not actually add up to the common Letter Size. The Letter Size is actually just your basis, the given half-fold dimensions for each panel are your printing area with the bleed taken out already.

A Legal brochure will measure about 7.5 inches in width by 8.5 inches in length while a Tabloid size will measure about 8.5 inches in width by 11 inches in length; still for the above half-fold brochure style.

For the tri-fold, a Letter Size brochure will measure about 3.65 inches in width by 8.5 inches in length for each of the six panels while a Legal size measures 4.65 inches in width by 8.5 inches in length.

Again, these measurements are for your printing area, minus the bleed.