Brochure Assignment
Audience and Purpose
The audience for this assignment is your Engl 150 instructor and other members of the class. The purpose of this assignment is to create a brochure that informs your audience about a particular subject through the use of both written and visual texts.
Assignment
For this assignment, you will design a two-sided, three-paneled brochure, a document suitable to introduce readers to a particular subject associated with Iowa State University. Possible topics are the history of a particular building at ISU, information about a painting or piece of sculpture on campus, a student activity, or a major you are interested in pursuing. If you’re not sure what you want to prepare a brochure for, roam the ISU web site. The index from A to Z near the top of the web site will provide you with dozens of possible topics.
Below is a representation of the two sides and six panels of a brochure:
When you design your brochure, you’ll need to keep mind how people will unfold it so that the panels will work together.
- #1 needs to make sense by itself because it acts as a kind of title page; however, when the entire brochure is open, #1 also needs to work with #5 and #6.
- #2 needs to work with #5 because people will see them together when they turn back #1. When the entire brochure is open, #2 also needs to work with #3 and #4.
Your instructor will ask you to bring examples of brochures from a bank or store so that you can see how panels complement one another.
Once you have selected a topic, find a minimum of three visual images that will help readers understand and interpret the information in the brochure. Cut or crop the images neatly so they provide only that information which is necessary for your purposes. Place them carefully in the brochure so that they are near the written text they support; use captions if necessary. If you are working with color images, find a color photocopy machine to make your final copy.
For this assignment, the written material in the brochure may be single spaced. Be sure to use at least two different type fonts – one for headings perhaps and another for the text beneath the heading. Use type fonts that reflect your assignment – for a serious topic, you will want a type face that is curly-cue-free, and so on.
Documenting Your Sources
It is important that you paraphrase rather than directly quote any source you might use. Your handbook or rhetoric textbook has information on paraphrasing and summarizing sources.
Brochures normally do not include the extensive documentation required for academic writing; however, for this assignment, you should include a reference page that will be separate from the brochure. The reference should include all the sources you used. If those were web sites, include the URL. Don’t forget to include the sources of the visual images you use. Finally, include a print-off or photocopy of the verbal sources you used.
Grading Criteria
- identifies main ideas (thesis) and key points of the subject
- is unified, coherent, and logical
- contains a minimum of three appropriate visual images
- maintains a balance between visual and written material
- has panels that work well together
- presents the material in an eye-appealing manner
- appropriately paraphrases or summarizes sources
- contains few, if any, major errors
- includes a reference page
- uses a print-off or photocopy of verbal sources
—adapted from an assignment by Alzire Messenger.