By: Most brochures get opened, skimmed for three seconds, and closed. The design determines whether those three seconds turn into thirty, or whether the reader bounces to something else.
Digital brochures have a design advantage over print: they can include video, clickable links, and analytics. But they also face a tougher environment. Your brochure is competing with every other tab, notification, and distraction on the reader's device. The design has to earn attention faster than a printed piece ever did.
These 11 tips cover the design decisions that matter most for digital brochures. Not abstract theory. Practical choices you can apply to whatever you're building.
1. Design for the Phone, Not the Desktop
You're probably designing on a 27-inch monitor. Most of your readers are viewing on a 6-inch phone.
This mismatch is responsible for more bad brochure design than any other single factor. Text that looks reasonable at 10 points on a desktop is microscopic on a phone. A two-column layout that works on a wide screen becomes a cramped mess on mobile.
Statista's 2024 data puts mobile at roughly 60% of all web traffic globally, and for content shared via email or text message, the mobile percentage is even higher.
Design at phone scale first. Enlarge your text until it's readable on a small screen. Make buttons big enough to tap with a thumb. Use single-column layouts on content pages. Then check how it looks on desktop, which will almost always be fine because things that work small also work large, while the reverse isn't true.
2. The Cover Page Has One Job
The cover page gets seen. Everything else depends on whether the cover makes someone want to turn to page two.
One strong image. One clear headline. Your logo. Done.
Don't put a paragraph of text on the cover. Don't put your phone number there. Don't list your services. The cover isn't an information page. It's a door. Your only job is to get the reader through it.
The headline should create curiosity or promise value. "Your Guide to Downtown Living" is better than "Riverdale Properties Brochure 2026." The first one tells the reader what they'll get. The second one is a label.
3. Simulate the Fold, Even Digitally
Print brochures have physical folds. Tri-folds, bi-folds, gatefolds. These folds create a natural reading sequence and moments of reveal. You open one panel and discover what's behind it.
Digital brochures don't have physical folds, but flipbooks have page turns, which serve the same purpose. Each page flip is a tiny moment of anticipation. Design for that.
End each page with a reason to flip. A question. A teaser. An image that's partially cut off. "But that's not the only reason..." at the bottom of a page works because the reader has to turn to find out what comes next.
Use the first thing visible on each new page to reward the flip. A stunning photo. A bold stat. A headline that answers the question from the previous page. If someone flips to a wall of text, you've wasted the reveal.
Think in spreads, not just pages. When a reader has two pages visible at once (common on desktop), the left and right pages should work together visually. Contrasting colors, a photo that spans both pages, or a layout where the left page sets up a question the right page answers.
4. One Idea Per Page. Really.
The temptation is to fit as much as possible onto each page. You have eight products, so you put four on page 3 and four on page 4. Efficient.
Also terrible for engagement.
When a page has too much on it, nothing stands out. The reader's eye doesn't know where to land. They scan briefly and flip past, having absorbed almost nothing.
One idea per page. One product. One service. One testimonial. One concept. Give it room to breathe, room to be seen, room to matter.
If that means your brochure grows from 8 pages to 12, that's fine. A 12-page brochure where every page communicates clearly is better than an 8-page brochure where every page is crammed. In digital, page count doesn't cost you anything extra. Use the space.
5. Make Images Do the Work
A brochure is a visual medium. If you remove all the text and someone can still understand what you're offering just from the images, your visual design is working.
Use real photos. Stock photos of people in suits shaking hands or pointing at whiteboards communicate nothing. A photo of your actual team, your actual product, your actual location tells a story that generic imagery can't.
Go big. Full-page images, full-bleed images, images that fill at least 60% of the page area. Small images scattered around text feel like decoration. Large images feel like content.
Show the thing in use. A photo of a product on a white background is fine for a catalog. For a brochure, show the product being used by a real person in a real setting. Context makes the product feel attainable rather than abstract.
Mind the quality. Blurry or pixelated images immediately undermine credibility, no matter how good your text and layout are. Use images that are at least 1500 pixels wide for full-page use. It's worth spending time on this because the Flipbooker editor will display exactly what you give it.
Good editorial design tends to disappear. You want the reader looking at the content, not admiring the layout, and strong imagery makes that easier because the images carry the page.
6. Typography Is Readability, Not Decoration
Font choice affects whether people read your brochure or just look at the pictures. Treat it as a readability decision, not an aesthetic one.
Two fonts maximum. One serif or sans-serif for headlines, one for body text. That's all. If you're using three or more fonts, the page starts to feel disjointed, like it was designed by multiple people who didn't talk to each other.
Size matters more than style. Body text should be at least 14px for digital reading. Headlines at 24px or larger. These sizes feel enormous if you're used to print, but on a phone screen they're just comfortable. Anything smaller and the reader has to pinch-to-zoom, and once they do that, you've lost the designed layout entirely.
Line spacing makes or breaks readability. Set line height to 1.4-1.6x the font size. Text with tight line spacing feels dense and uninviting. Text with generous spacing feels open and easy to read.
Left-align body text. Justified text creates uneven word spacing that looks messy, especially in narrow columns. Centered text works for headlines and short captions but is exhausting to read in paragraphs. Left-aligned is easiest to read for anything longer than two lines.
7. Color Should Guide, Not Decorate
Color is a navigational tool. It tells the reader's eye where to go and what to pay attention to.
Pick three colors:
- Primary brand color. Used for headlines, buttons, and key elements.
- Secondary or accent color. Used for highlights, icons, and secondary buttons.
- Neutral. White, light gray, or a soft background tone for the majority of the page area.
That's it. Three colors. Use them consistently across every page, and the brochure will feel cohesive even if the content on each page is completely different.
The mistake is using color for decoration: rainbow gradients, patterned backgrounds, different color schemes on every page. Each of those choices adds visual noise. And noise is the enemy of communication.
High contrast for text. Dark text on light backgrounds. Always. Light text on dark backgrounds works for short headlines but is harder to read in paragraphs. The WCAG guidelines recommend a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1, which isn't just an accessibility standard. It's a readability standard.
8. Write Less, Say More
Brochure copy is not blog copy. It's not website copy. It's closer to billboard copy with a few extra sentences.
Headlines should be 3-8 words. Enough to communicate, short enough to scan. "Fresh Ingredients, Delivered Daily" beats "Our Commitment to Providing the Freshest Locally-Sourced Ingredients Delivered to Your Door Every Single Day."
Body paragraphs should be 2-3 sentences. If you're writing a fourth sentence, you're probably explaining something that belongs on your website, not in your brochure. The brochure's job is to create interest. The website's job is to provide detail.
Cut every adjective you can. "Our innovative, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art technology" says less than "Our technology processes orders in under 2 seconds." Specifics beat adjectives. Numbers beat claims. Proof beats promises.
Write the way you talk. Read your copy out loud. If it sounds like a press release, rewrite it. If it sounds like something you'd actually say to a person standing in front of you, it's probably right.
9. CTAs Should Be Obvious and Frequent
A call to action that only appears on the last page of your brochure will be seen by a fraction of your readers. Most people don't make it to the end.
Put your primary CTA on at least three pages. The cover or page two (for eager readers), somewhere in the middle (for interested readers), and the final page (for thorough readers). Same action, same wording, different placements.
Make buttons look like buttons. Rounded rectangle. Contrasting color. Text that describes the action: "Book a Tour," "Get a Quote," "See Pricing." Don't be clever with CTA text. "Let's Go!" is vague. "Start Your Free Trial" is clear.
In a digital brochure, every CTA should be clickable. This sounds obvious but it's missed constantly. People design beautiful buttons, export the PDF, convert to a flipbook, and forget to actually add the click target. A button that doesn't click is just a picture of a button. Test every one of them.
For the mechanics of adding links and click targets, the Flipbooker editor makes this straightforward.
10. White Space Is a Design Element
Empty space on a page isn't waste. It's what makes the content that's there visible.
When every inch of a page is filled with text, images, logos, and decorative elements, nothing has room to breathe. The eye doesn't know where to look. The page feels urgent and cluttered, which is the opposite of the confidence and professionalism most brochures are trying to project.
Margins should be generous. At least half an inch on each side, and more is usually better. Content that runs to the edge of the page feels cramped.
Space between sections. When you move from one idea to the next on a page, add space. The gap signals "new thought" to the reader's brain. Without it, everything blurs together.
Let important elements stand alone. A testimonial quote, a key statistic, or a hero image. Give it its own area with nothing competing for attention around it. The isolation makes it more prominent, not less.
The pages in your brochure that feel the most impactful will usually be the ones with the most white space. That's not a coincidence.
11. Test With Fresh Eyes
You've been staring at this brochure for hours. You know what every page says. You know where every link goes. You are now the worst possible judge of whether it works.
Find someone who hasn't seen it. Hand them your phone with the flipbook open. Don't explain anything. Watch them flip through it.
After a minute, ask three questions:
- What is this brochure about?
- What's the one thing it wants you to do?
- Was anything confusing or hard to read?
If they can't answer the first two questions correctly, your messaging needs work. If they mention anything confusing, fix it. These answers matter more than any design principle because they tell you what a real reader actually experienced.
And always test on a real phone. The browser's responsive preview mode lies to you. Font rendering is different. Touch targets feel different. Scroll behavior is different. Five minutes of testing on an actual phone will catch problems that hours of desktop preview won't reveal.
Putting It Together
Good brochure design isn't about making something beautiful. It's about making something clear. Clear message, clear visuals, clear path to action. The beauty comes from the clarity, not the other way around.
Start with one message per page. Use strong images. Write short copy. Make the CTAs clickable and obvious. Test on a phone. Review the analytics after a week and adjust.
The first version of your brochure won't be the best version. But if you're measuring what readers actually do with it, every version after that gets closer.
FAQs
Should I design my digital brochure in landscape or portrait orientation?
Portrait works best for most brochures because it fills mobile screens naturally. Landscape can work for property showcases or photo-heavy content where wide images tell the story. If in doubt, go portrait. It's easier to read on phones.
How many fonts should I use in a brochure?
Two. One for headlines, one for body text. If you want to add a third for special callouts like pull quotes, that's fine, but more than three fonts creates visual chaos. Stick with the same two throughout for consistency.
What's the ideal image resolution for a digital brochure?
Images should be at least 150 DPI at display size, which typically means source files of 1500-2000 pixels wide. Higher is fine since Flipbooker will optimize them. Lower and they'll look blurry, especially on high-resolution phone screens.
How do I make my brochure accessible?
Use high-contrast text and background colors, keep font sizes above 14px, write descriptive alt text for images, make sure link text describes the destination, and avoid relying on color alone to convey information. These basics cover most accessibility needs.
Should I include pricing in my brochure?
It depends on your sales process. If pricing is standardized and competitive, including it removes a barrier. If pricing is custom or complex, a 'request a quote' button works better. The worst option is vague language like 'affordable' or 'competitive pricing' that says nothing.