Crit for brochure design

[VoidPointer]

Mostly as a learning experience I entered a design completion at 99designs. I My entries didn't make it but personally I'm not all that disappointed with what I was able to come up with.

My stuff is on this page. If anyone would care to have a look and provide some constructive criticism that would be really nice ;)

Thanks!
/VP

[Toon]

Looks good the only pointers I'd give it to fix your H&J's so words aren't split across lines and you could do with some more padding around the edges, the text is a little close to the edge

[Dwellupon]

Other than what toon stated. Not to Bad. Good job.

Thats my own personal opinion though.

[SidekickWD]

I like it lots! Yes on the more padding, but other than that I really like it.

[VoidPointer]

Originally Posted by Toon

Looks good the only pointers I'd give it to fix your H&J's so words aren't split across lines and you could do with some more padding around the edges, the text is a little close to the edge

Thanks Toon. So would you say that the body text rather be set flush-left with no hyphenation at all or to set it justified with minimal to no hyphenation?

[Toon]

Justified with no hyphenation, if the text remains quite small you shouldn't get too many gaps in the text

[zumojuice]

Pad it in and you should be ok. Hyphenation, is often required when justified, but you can get away without as toon says. You may need to play with word/letter spacing perhaps if it does open up to rivers...

[VoidPointer]

Thanks for the suggestions... I did another version of the fish-tank theme with a larger gutter for where the brochure would be folded.

I disabled hyphenation and indeed, it actually works quite good. I decreased the size of the copy text a little bit while keeping the same leading so that the slightly larger word spaces don't become vertical rivers (11/18 -> 10.5/18). I also allowed for 95%-105% glyph scaling for justification. (I'm using InDesign CS3)

front: http://www.uninspected.com/files/fish.jpg
back: http://www.uninspected.com/files/fish2.jpg

The body type is Vectora, the headings are Perpetua because that is what was used for the logo which was already existing. I had also considered Syntax and GillSans for the body type because they are a tad more organic but I settled for Vectora's better readability - and because it's Adrian Frutiger's birthday this Saturday ;)

[Toon]

Looks really good. I'd add a slight bit of padding under the blue block headings the body text is a little close. Nice job

[kervin09]

Originally Posted by VoidPointer

Mostly as a learning experience I entered a design completion at 99designs. I My entries didn't make it but personally I'm not all that disappointed with what I was able to come up with.

My stuff is on this page. If anyone would care to have a look and provide some constructive criticism that would be really nice ;)

Thanks!
/VP

It's not bad. It's good, a really good one. A thumbs up for you man.