A leaflet is rarely rejected outright. More often it is simply never read. Someone takes it, glances for a second or two, decides it isn't for them, and moves on — often without being able to say afterwards what it was advertising. Layout is what decides which of those two outcomes you get. Not the typeface, not the paper stock, not the clever headline: the arrangement of things on the page, and whether that arrangement lets a distracted reader find the point quickly. The guidance below is about building that arrangement, in order, from the first mark to the final check.

Decide what the reader should see first

Before you open a design program, write the leaflet's text as a plain list and rank it. Which single line carries the offer? What is the second most useful thing to know? What is merely supporting detail? Most leaflets fail here, because everything on them is set at roughly the same importance and the reader has to do the sorting work themselves.

Give yourself three levels and no more: a dominant element, a supporting level, and body text. A gardener's leaflet might lead with "Hedges cut in an afternoon" at a size that fills a third of the page, follow with the areas covered and a starting price, and keep the rest in small print. The business name goes second, not first, unless the name is already well known locally — a reader who has never heard of you does not need your logo at 60pt.

Contrast has to be visible from across a room. Headline at 14pt against body at 11pt is not hierarchy, it is a whisper. Use one typeface with two or three weights rather than two typefaces fighting each other; if you do pair fonts, let one clearly dominate.

Let whitespace do the sorting

Space is not what's left over when the content runs out. It is the tool that tells the reader which things belong together. Items placed close together read as a group; a gap tells the eye to stop and start again. So put a small gap between a heading and the paragraph beneath it, and a much larger gap before the next heading. If the space above a subhead is not at least twice the space below it, the subhead will look attached to the wrong block.

The squint test

Step back from the screen and half-close your eyes, or blur the page in a preview. What survives the blur is what a reader on a busy pavement will register: usually one shape, maybe two. If three or four headings are still visible, none of them is dominant. Adjust sizes and gaps until the blurred page has an obvious order to it.

Two other numbers worth keeping in your head: line length of roughly 45 to 75 characters, and line spacing of about 1.3 to 1.5 for body copy. On an A5 leaflet that usually means one generous column or two narrow ones, not a single line running the full width. And resist the urge to fill a quiet corner with an extra paragraph. That corner is doing useful work.

Design to the trim line, not the screen edge

On screen the page is infinite. On paper it is cut, folded and handled, and the edges are the first thing to suffer. Three terms cover it:

• Trim — the final cut line. Anything outside it disappears.
• Bleed — a few millimetres of artwork beyond the trim, so colour or images run cleanly to the edge after cutting. Three millimetres is a common standard, but confirm with your printer.
• Safe area — the margin inside the trim where text and logos live. Five millimetres is a bare minimum; eight to ten is comfortable and looks deliberate.

Text set 3mm from the edge feels cramped even when it prints correctly, and it will print incorrectly on a home or office printer, which cannot usually print to the edge at all. Keep body copy well clear of folds too — at least 5mm either side — because a fold that lands a millimetre off will crease straight through a line of type. Ask your printer for their specification sheet rather than guessing the numbers; they differ between presses and paper weights, and a two-minute email saves a reprint.

Build the page in a sensible order

Working in this sequence keeps you from decorating before the structure is sound.

1. Set up the document at final size, with trim, bleed and safe area marked, plus any fold lines.
2. Place the dominant element — the headline, or one strong image with a short line over it. Nothing else yet.
3. Add the supporting level: the offer detail, the key facts, three or four short lines at most.
4. Fix the contact block in the same place every time, usually the bottom third, and keep it identical across every leaflet you produce.
5. Only now fill the remaining space — and fill it with whitespace first, extra copy only if it earns its place.

Write calls to action that people can act on

A leaflet without a clear next step is a poster. One primary action is enough, stated as a verb and a consequence: "Call 01234 567890 before Friday to book a slot" beats "Contact us" every time, because it tells the reader what happens next and what it costs them in effort.

Repeat the action once in the contact block, positioned where the eye naturally finishes. Keep the phone number in a readable size with clear spacing, and make sure the address or website can be copied without decoding. If you use a QR code, print it at least 20mm square, test it on two different phones from arm's length, and never use it as the only route to information — a good share of readers will not scan it. Two actions, such as phone and website, are fine. Three or more split attention and none of them wins.

A five-minute check before you send it to print

Print a single copy at 100% on an ordinary printer, put it on a table, and read it standing up. Then run through this list.

• From arm's length, can you tell what it is advertising and who it is for?
• Is there one obvious next step, with a number or address that is easy to copy?
• Is every piece of text at least 5mm inside the trim, and clear of the folds?
• Are there three levels of information, or has everything drifted to the same size?
• Have you read every word aloud, including the phone number and the postcode?
• Has someone who doesn't know the business looked at it for five seconds and told you what it's for?

That last one catches more problems than any design rule. If their answer is vague, the hierarchy needs work — and it is far cheaper to fix it now than after the print run.

Photo: 3844328 / Pixabay