Brochures and leaflets: how many panels, which folds, which binding

On a three-panel leaflet, the three panels are not the same width.

It sounds absurd put like that, but try folding a sheet into three identical parts: the last panel, the one that ends up inside, meets the fold and will not fit. The leaflet does not close flat, it buckles, and across five hundred stacked copies the flaw multiplies.

The practical rule on a landscape A4 (297 mm): outer and centre panels at 99 mm, the panel folding inside at 96-97 mm. Two or three millimetres, which look like a measuring error on screen and in the hand are the difference between a leaflet that closes and one that fans open.

The same applies, in proportion, to four-panel concertinas: each panel that ends up further inside must be slightly shorter than the one before.

If you would rather not think about it, send us the content and we will do the layout: it is design work, quoted separately, and we will show you a hand-folded proof before running the full print.

The threshold is simple: up to six or eight pages you fold, beyond that you bind.

Above that, a folded leaflet gets awkward — too thick to close, too wide to open — and you move to a booklet. There the bindings are two:

• Saddle stitch — from 8 to 64 pages, in multiples of four, two staples on the centre fold. This is the catalogue and magazine binding: it opens well and costs little.
• Spiral — up to 200 pages, plastic or metal. It opens completely flat, which suits manuals that stay open on a desk while you work.

A note on multiples of four: with saddle stitch each folded sheet produces four pages, so the page count must be 8, 12, 16, 20… If your content lands on 14 pages, you either cut two or add two: there is no third option, and it is better decided while laying out, not after.

A leaflet file is supplied as single pages — the front as one page and the back as another — not with panels arbitrarily side by side, and never as reading spreads.

Here too you need 3 mm of bleed on every side, for the same reason as business cards: it is trimmed in stacks and the blade has a tolerance.

Two points that apply only to folded work:

• Do not run text across the fold. A line crossing the crease breaks up, and folded paper distorts the letters slightly. Keep at least 5 mm clear on either side of the fold.
• Remember how it opens. The panel the reader sees first is the cover, the one revealed by turning is the second: if the layout ignores the opening order, the leaflet tells the story in the wrong sequence. Numbering the panels on a hand-folded photocopy before laying out is a minute well spent.