The Ultimate Guide to Flyer Design

 

There are many reasons to use a flyer, whether you want to promote an event, create brand awareness for your new business or something else entirely. Regardless of why you’re creating a flyer, there’s one thing to keep in mind – your flyer design.

If you really want to make an impact and grab audience attention with a flyer, you need to make sure you’re using high-quality visuals, large fonts and bright colors.

We’ve put together this ultimate guide to flyer design in order to help you create eye-catching flyers that do the job they’re meant to do.

Let’s dive in!

 

Should You Create a Flyer?

First things first, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Flyers and many other types of print marketing and advertising materials have been around for decades.

Are they still relevant? And should you be creating flyers?

The answer is yes! While digital has certainly taken the world by storm and is now a primary marketing method, flyers and other print tactics can still be effective.

This is the case for many reasons.

First, you can bring flyers for an upcoming event to other community events or gatherings that are hyper-relevant to your event’s audience, giving you the perfect opportunity to promote your function.

Second, people still go places and look at things. Hanging flyers in college halls, on light posts and other areas around town can be incredibly helpful for generating awareness and an audience for your promotion.

Third, flyers can still be used digitally. Print off a stack of flyers, then download the file as an image and share on social media, in emails, on your website and more.

Now that we’ve covered exactly why you should still be considering flyers for your marketing, let’s cover the various ways you might consider using one.

Ways to Use Flyers

Curious if a flyer is going to be a good way to advertise an upcoming promotion? We’ve put together a list of the best ways to use flyers along with a few great examples you can edit and customize yourself!

Events

If you have a local event coming up, creating and handing out flyers can be the perfect promotional tactic. Whether you’re putting together a small seminar or a large concert in a local park, you should create a flyer.

Here’s a great example of a flyer advertising a local music festival.

And an example of a flyer perfect for a smaller event, like a job fair or book club.

You can hand out your flyers at similar events, hang them up at the venue to let people know of upcoming events or share them on social media to let your followers know of future happenings.

Just make sure you include necessary event information, like date, time, location, etc., so that anyone who finds your flyer knows exactly when and where to go!

Products/Services

Whether you’re promoting an upcoming launch or simply want to share information on your current products or services, a flyer can be a great way to do so.

These are perfect for distributing at networking events or keeping on a front table or checkout line for visitors to grab on their way in or out of your business.

Here’s an example of a great way to show off your company’s services.

Leaving something like this in your lobby can be a great way to let people easily contact you if they need one of your services.

This can also be a great way to let prospective customers know about your pricing and packages, or simply to show off a collage of your work or your products, like in the example below.

Be sure to include contact information so that anyone who gets ahold of your flyer knows how to get in touch with you to inquire about services or buying your products.

Specials

Show off your weekly or daily specials by creating and sharing flyers. You can display them in your store or restaurant, share them on social media or leave them at the host stand for patrons to grab and keep.

Here’s a great example of a flyer you could create and share to show off your specials.

Make sure you include your restaurant name and address so people with your flyer remember where to find you.

Sales/Discounts

Hosting a big sale in your shop? Let people know about it with a flyer! This is the perfect way to promote big discounts or a semi-annual sale.

Just keep flyers by your cash register and place them in shopping bags each time someone makes a purchase leading up to the sale to entice them to come back.

Or you could host an exclusive, online sale and promote it on your website, in your email newsletters, on social media and other online platforms.

Be sure to include the date, time and location of your sale so no one will miss out.

Charitable Causes

Showcase that your business or organization is contributing to a charitable cause or hosting a fundraiser by creating and distributing a flyer.

This is a great way to give back to your community and showcase movements that you as a company support.

Here’s a great example of a flyer that’s simply to generate awareness about a cause or issue.

Brand Awareness

Flyers can also be great just for brand awareness, and letting people in your community know that your business or organization exists.

You can hang these on light posts, leave them at community buildings and other promotional tactics to help maximize the number of eyes on your flyers.

You can see the business name in large letters, an about section and a small blurb about services. The website address is included, but you might also want to add your address if you have a physical location.

What to Include in Your Flyer Design [Checklists]

Now we’re ready to start moving forward with your flyer design. But what information do you need to compile to create an effective flyer that gives viewers everything they need?

We’ve put together three different checklists based on the type of flyer you’re creating so that you know exactly what you need to be including in your flyer design.

Event Flyer Design Checklist

If you’re creating a flyer for an event, whether for your business, for a charitable event or for the community, this is the checklist you’re going to want to follow.

What to include in your event flyer design:

• Name of your event
• Subtitle specifying type of event
• Location/date/time
• Cost of entry, if any
• Dress code, if applicable
• RSVP information
• Contact information/website/social media profiles
• Event details
• Visuals

Promotional Flyer Design Checklist

The next type of flyer is the promotional flyer. This covers sales, discounts, specials and other similar promotions your business might be running.

 

What to include in your promotional flyer design:

• Title of your promotion/sale
• Name of your business
• Visuals
• Sale information
• Date(s)
• Store address, if applicable
• Contact information/website/social media profiles

Informational Flyer Design Checklist

Your informational flyer will be the one that includes product/service information or is simply meant to generate brand awareness for your business.

What to include in your informational flyer design:

• Name of your business
• Visuals
• Product/service information
• Business details
• Address, if applicable
• Contact information/website/social media profiles

 

Flyer Design Tips for Impactful Flyers

Now that you’ve been able to compile all of the applicable information for your flyer, let’s dive into our top flyer design tips. 

Keep all of these in mind when creating your flyer so that you come out with a stunning, eye-catching flyer design that makes an impact on your audience.

1. Focus On a Single Goal or Objective

You don’t want to shove too much information into your flyer. While these can come in different sizes, it’s still a single piece of paper, so you only want to have one goal or objective for each flyer you create.

This means you can’t cram brand awareness, a list of services and a major discount you’re offering all in a single flyer.

Instead, create one flyer per campaign so that you don’t clutter it with text, and can create a visually appealing flyer design instead.

It has one goal: to bring it new customers by offering $100 off summer bookings. There isn’t too much information overcrowding the design. Instead, the flyer is straightforward and right to the point.

2. Create a Bold, Attention-Grabbing Headline

You might choose to have your business name be the headline, or perhaps the name of your event. Whatever you decide, make sure that it’s in large, bold font and can grab your audience’s attention immediately.

You want to do the same with your own headline. You could use a large font, bright colors or something else to make sure your headline is the first thing people see.

3. Keep Visual Hierarchy In Mind

Visual hierarchy is a design principle that helps you to place your design elements in the order of importance, making it obvious where a viewer’s eyes should look first, second, third and so on.

4. Incorporate White Space

First things first, white space isn’t always white. We’re not saying you have to have white margins and space between design elements in every flyer you create.

White space, also known as negative space, is just empty space in your design. 

And it’s a good idea to incorporate white space around your design so you’re not designing edge to edge, as well as to give appropriate space between different pieces of copy or visual elements in your flyer design.

5. Choose Fonts and Colors Wisely

If you’re creating a brand awareness flyer, you’re a bit lucky in this aspect, as you’re going to want to match all of your font and color choices to your branding.

Input all of this information into your Visme brand kit to keep it easily accessible when creating your brand awareness/informational flyer design.

However, if you’re designing a flyer for an event, seasonal promotion or something along those lines, you might want to get a bit more creative with your font pairing and color combinations.

Here’s a golden rule to remember, though: don’t use more than 2-3 different fonts or colors in your flyer design.

This is another way that flyers can start to look really cluttered really quickly. While putting a different font on each piece of copy in your design can seem like a fun, creative idea, it can actually turn out really off putting in execution.