Reading Response Week #5
I found this brochure about the Euro Railways very interesting. Here is the link:
http://www.eurorailways.com/kb/brochures/ER2006.pdf
The brochure gives an overview of the European railway system, with detailed information about all the various possible rail passes. The brochure also touches upon the rail protection plan and the customer service department. The brochure is made really attractive and would look even better in hand.
One important eye catching point in this brochure was the placement of the appropriate images with the text. From the first page itself, it clearly depicts what information the brochure is going to have. As we move on, it shows various other relevant pictures of the places the Euro rail covers, for example, Italy, France, Switzerland etc. It is believed that people infer more from the images than from the text and that’s the exact same policy I think this company is following. The images seek attention very easily and can be made striking. The images in this brochure basically speak for themselves instead of mentioning them in the text and boring the reader. The brochure also includes other images of the rail system like the stations as well as a map of Europe showing the various connections among the countries.
The information presented in the brochure was precise. I don’t feel the left out anything important nor did they include extra information. This information was also aligned appropriately. The information was either aligned in 2 columns or a single column format with images around. The important text was in the green color and underlined, while rest of the information was in black. The headings were given attention by using the same green color but in the bold font and increasing the font size. Hence they maintained a simple two color format, green and black, but still managed to make the brochure attractive. I feel that too many colors can make the brochure look too messy. This one is an effective example of what we call a simple color brochure. There was uniformity throughout the brochure by using a dull green background color. This color was matching with the headings as well. Because they used a two color scheme, the images were clear. There wasn’t a problem of the contrast between the pictures and the background. I really like the way the maintained the uniformity. It gives a good professional touch to the brochure.
Based on this brochure, I would like my group brochure also to be organized and effective. I would make sure that the group includes all the information that is required. Also using a specific color scheme is very important, and we will keep close attention on that. We shall try our level best to make the brochure look attractive by suing various color combinations and the text format and the sizes.
Comments
Reply
I also like the example you have found. The headings are kept consistent. I think that this is a great idea for our brochure. Consistency will help the reader identify important information. An effective color scheme will also be important. Like you said, too many colors can be distracting. By choosing our colors wisely, we can find a balance. The colors will help grab attention and make our brochure more appealing. I really like how the brochure you found adds pictures. I think that if we put pictures in our brochures it will help break up our text to make it easier to read. The pictures will also add to the message of the brochure. We will definitely be referencing this brochure as we write ours.
Group 2 Comment
I like the brochure that you chose to present. I have a heard great things about the rail system in Europe and this brochure defiantly supports that. The first thing about this brochure that caught my attention were the pictures. I felt that the pictures really made the brochure. They were spaced throughout the entire brochure and they really told the story of what one would expect to see on their trip across Europe. Along with the pictures, I felt that the color was appropriate and really tied the text and the pictures together. If you were to be designing brochures in the future, this would be a good one to follow.
Comment
I liked how your brochure used appropriate images and pictures providing information effectively and helping the reader’s understanding. I believe sometimes rather than bunch of long sentences, it is better to show pictures to deliver message. It is eye catching and pulls reader’s attention. I agree that information presented in the brochure was precise. It is hard to stay at the position of providing enough information not leaving anything out as well not giving too much unnecessary information. But this brochure gave adequate information and it was aligned appropriately. I also liked how they used green colors and underlines to emphasize important text. It is true that using too many colors do make brochure look messy and unprofessional. The reader will have hard time following the information.