One of the most common issues we encounter from our customers is knowing what type of leaflet or booklet is right for them… or more often even understanding what options are available. Once you get past a simple printed flyer there are a range of sizes and formats, paginations and bindings that is can get a little confusing.
With years of experience in delivering high quality printed leaflets and brochures, and advising our clients along the way we here at StuPrint.com have put together some simple descriptions to help you understand the terminology and decide what format is best for you.
Folded leaflets
Let’s start with the most simple type of leaflet you can encounter and what is a plain leaflet or flyer which consists of a single sheet of printed paper which is either printed front and back to make it a 2 page leaflet or just on the front to make it a 1 page leaflet. This is also the exact sort of printed item that makes up a high-quality wedding thank you card or short and simple funeral order of service programme.
Taking a plain leaflet and adding a single fold (to fold it in half) produces a 4 page leaflet consisting of a front cover, 2 inner pages and a back cover. The most frequently encountered 4 page leaflets are taking an A3 sheet and folding it to create a finished size of A4 which would be referred to as a 4 page A4 leaflet – or doing the same with a A4 sheet which would be folded to create a 4 page A5 leaflet.
Now – when you add in a second fold to the paper you will now have a 6 page leaflet. This is where things get slightly more complicated as there are different ways in which you can make these folds. The 2 main folds are a roll-fold and a concertina fold. To make a roll-fold leaflet the right hand inner page folds into the centre first with the left hand folding on top to create the front cover (in other words ‘rolling in’). Alternatively you could fold the left hand inner page in but then fold the right hand page away from you to create the back cover, this is called a concertina fold but is also referred to as a zig zag or Z-fold because of the shape it makes. If either of these standard folds are done with an A4 sheet of paper they will make a finished size of 99mm x 210mm and this is referred to as a 6 page DL leaflet.
Using the 2 types of folds mentioned here you can choose to create an 8, 10 or 12 page folded leaflet. However the more folds you use the less well the leaflet will lie and this is when a brochure may be opted for instead.
Bound booklets
Whilst a leaflet is characterised by a sheet of paper which has only been folded, a brochure or booklet is a document in which the pages are bound together in some way shape or form. We have described below the 3 most common forms of brochure – stitched, wiro bound or perfect bound.
Stitched or stapled brochures
To create a stitched or stapled brochure 2 or more sheets of printed paper are taken together and folded in half, the spine that is formed is then set together with 2 or more staples. Is this is done by folding an A4 sheet lengthways then the results would be an 8 page A5 brochure/booklet.
As each additional piece of paper adds another 4 pages the pagination will always go up by 4 with the minimum page count being 8 (as a 4 page would simply by a folded leaflet we discussed above) and the maximum page count is usually around 60 pages although this is based on the weight of the paper chosen for your brochure as it needs to be able to fold neatly without spraying out but also be thin enough to staple together.
A common example of a stitched or stapled brochure would be small magazines such as those found in a newspaper supplement, or a printed wedding order of service, which tends to be 8-pages or 12-pages in length.
Wiro or spiral bound brochures
Differently to a stitched brochure, wiro or spiral binding does not involve any folding, instead you start with a stack of printed sheets and add a plastic or wire spiral along the left hand spine to create the finished document. As a sheet of paper is never folded the page count will always go up by 2 at a time each time you add a new sheet to the brochure.
A wiro bound brochure option has the advantage of being able to cope with a large number of sheets using a bigger spiral spine, and is both a relatively cheap and quick type of brochure to produce. You can choose to add a separate cover on a thick high quality paper stock as well as a backboard for stability and to give your brochure that premium finish.
Perfect bound brochures
One of the most premium types of booklets you will find are perfect bound. Like a wiro bound brochure no folding is required instead a stack of printed pages are bound together on the left hand spine using heat and glue. This type of brochure is used by high-end glossy magazines to large shopping catalogues as they can also afford a large page count.
Perfect bound brochures are the one format which have a higher minimum page number needing at approximately 40 pages to be thick enough to create the spine. The front and back cover is neatly wrapped around the outside creating a high quality look for the finish and a very popular choice as a premium brochure but at a cheaper price to producing a hard backed book.
Please dont hesitate to get in touch with StuPrint.com is youd like any more information on our great range of printed booklets. We can also recommend this handy resource for more information on stapled order of service.
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