8 page brochure rejected

Hi All,

Just wanted to get feedback on an item that was rejected by the GraphicRiver team. You can see an over view graphic here http://www.d4bonline.co.uk/GBpreview.jpg

The reason was that they had other files similar to this. I have looked extensively in the brochure section and came up with a square format (there are only 29 square brochures) and what i deem to be a design on par with anything already in the brochure section.

My living is design and artwork so the file was setup up impeccably well yet i got this ‘Standard’ response:

Unfortunately the quality of your file does not meet the high standards

What exactly does this generic response mean?

I’m really getting very disconcerned with it all as I feel i am meeting the high standards but getting consistent knockbacks.

Any feedback would be most appreciated.

thanks

wozzabikes

I understand your frustation but here’s the thing, your brochure looks ‘ok’ but with that i have said it all, i think the main problem is it does not offer anything new, it actually looks really simple, plus i dont really think the brush like illustratiom fits well with this.

It needs more! Subtle but unique design elements, strong an unique typography, when i look at this unfortunately there is nothing that makes me go “Wow!”

I hope you get what i mean, Good Luck!

Hi, many thanks for the feedback. Whilst i appreciate the high standards of design that need to be met, i do feel that a large percentage of brochures, presentations and so forth are over designed. By this i mean what happened to minimalist clean simple design which is what I have proposed in my submission. You read many times how submitters need to be different and inventive, what exactly do they mean by this a high percentage are all theme based around, in my opinion, overused graphics throughout a document just to fill space, what ever happened to white space in a design. What I feel this place lacks is clean simple design, to me, everything is over-engineered.

Nothing wrong with it at all, but you take the stance that we’ve all seen this layout before, yes we have and that’s because it’s very simple and appealing to a large group of purchasers.

I’m just a little frustrated with the generic answers given back by the moderators which really don’t help you along the way.

regards

You can definitely get somewhere with this design. It may not be perfect finished yet, but it’s a good start and definitely a lot better than other rejections we see here. So don’t despair!

Here’s a few things I see immediately. Note this is just personal opinion but maybe it helps you focus on things you can improve:

1) I don’t much like the striped bar at the top of the blue boxes in the top screenshot, somehow it takes away from the clean look. Also those two pages maybe need a little extra, they seem very simple. Clean isn’t bad, but too simple gives me the feeling that something is missing.

2) Somehow the back and front covers are very dark by the rest of the brochure is bright and light. I don’t think those mix very well. Maybe offer a dark and light version or only a dark or only a light version. I usually offer both with my brochures

3) I agree with TW on the illustration, I’m not sure it has its place in there

4) also agreed on typography. Make it standout use another font type for the headers. Maybe add some Sub header styles or quotes – something more to give the reader’s eyes to hook onto

5) The page with the three small images, divided into columns, on the left column there is a big white space. The thin list of text seems oddly out of place there. You should think about margins and spacing here. The same goes for the text around the smaller images. The images seem to have more padding at the bottom then on the right. Also the columns are very close together. Think about giving your text more space to breathe

6) The “general brochure” local text and the icon image next to it seem a little misaligned, somehow it doesn’t sit 100% right. Either the icon image is a little too small or the word “general” is a little too big. Just play around with the balance here a little.

Hope this helps you on your way and gives you a few ideas. I’m not saying that this is why it may have been rejected, it’s just things I noted when looking at it.

Cheers

Chris