What software is needed to create digital brochures?

Designing Digital Brochures in-house or using an external professional or agency

When it comes to Digital Brochure design, the choice of creating it yourself or employing a professional designer may affect the software you use. The price and accessibility of professional-grade design software have changed hugely over the last 5 years, and subscription models have made it far more accessible to individuals. These changes have also seen a number of new options becoming available including online portals such as Issuu and Turtl. What software is needed to create digital brochures?

I want to create a digital brochure; what application can I use?

As mentioned earlier, the number of options available has increased dramatically and now includes, but isn’t limited to:

• Adobe Illustrator CC.
• Adobe InDesign CC.
• Canva.
• Inkscape.
• Microsoft Publisher.
• QuarkXPress.
• Scribus.
• Venngage.

The Adobe Suite of apps are widely seen as the industrial standard for creating brochures, whether printed or digital publishing. Similar packages include QuarkXpress and Publisher, with the others being mostly online platforms.

Software Brochure Template or Bespoke?

Once the question of in-house or outsourcing has been made, and the choice of software has been decided the next big question is whether should you use an existing template or create from scratch. We investigate the benefits of each:

Digital Brochure Template

Templates exist for a reason, as once you have created a brochure you like it makes creating the next one quicker and easier. The template may not even be one that you created, it could just match your requirement perfectly and it makes sense to use it rather than struggle to recreate it.

The one thing to avoid is choosing a template that is so generic that it is hard to distinguish one from another, especially if you are creating a number or suite of brochures. Also, you can’t guarantee that a competitor or other supplier won’t use exactly the same template as you.

Bespoke Brochure Design

If you choose to go Bespoke you avoid all the aforementioned concerns of using a look and feel that others own or use as well. Being able to create a brochure that completely reflects your marketing needs as well as your branding and corporate identity requirements ensures that brochures will deliver on short-term and long-term goals.

A bespoke brochure may take longer to create than simply populating a template, but you must consider that the brochure you end up with can very well act as a template for future iterations.

Software is Defined by Need.

In conclusion, the software you use should depend on what sort of digital brochure you need. There are several different digital brochure types, and each is best delivered using specific software. To illustrate, the following brochure types:

All the above can be delivered using Adobe InDesign or alternative standalone programs and platforms. The choice is ultimately yours, but for consistency and other operational benefits, most professional design agencies will stick to industry-standard packages