Event Booklet: How to Design a Great Booklet

Event Booklet: How to Design a Great Booklet

Need to design an event booklet? Running a live event involves planning for lots of moving parts to make it successful. From coordinating presenters to planning out the space to setting up a workable and appealing schedule for attendees and featured guests, all of the advance work takes time and careful thought.

But deciding how to keep attendees interested, engaged, and excited about the event is usually a top priority. One way event organizers can do this is by designing an event booklet that guides attendees through the event and extends the experience long after the final session ends.

Using an Event Booklet to Level Up Participant Experience

The work of designing and printing an event booklet happens because event organizers want to ensure that the time attendees spend at the event is worthwhile. When the organizers consider the experience they want attendees to have, it is easier to develop a meaningful event booklet that supports those expectations. Organizers and event planners can look at an event booklet as a way to bring together their event expectations and the attendees’ experience because the booklet can assist in creating a seamless, enjoyable event in a few different ways.

Event booklets provide key scheduling details. Event participants need a handy schedule, and having a well-designed event booklet that clearly presents the overall schedule as well as breakout or special events along with their locations, speakers or other pertinent information is key to making an event run smoothly. Presenting a schedule digitally can be an option for many organizations, but when technology fails, glitches or connectivity is difficult in large venues, relying on digital scheduling can end in missed events and unhappy attendees. Instead, printing a clearly presented schedule gives participants an idea of the flow of the day or event at a glance, giving them instant confirmation about critical presentations or meetings without having to rely on temperamental technology.

Notating space encourages engagement. Booklets can be designed to give participants space to take notes, fill in key information, or draw connections and conclusions during sessions or meetings. Intentionally including blank or designated note-taking space inspires participants to take notes, jot down potentially important content, or write down what they are hearing, seeing, and experiencing. And increasing the opportunities for an attendee to participate in sessions, presentations, or other event activities will help them to get the most out of the event.

Sponsorship acknowledgment looks professional. Sponsorship likely helped you put on a great event, so as an event organizer, you need to find ways to acknowledge their support. A beautiful event booklet with pages or spaces dedicated to thanking sponsors, presenting their content, and recognizing their importance at your event is critical for a productive event and can help you repeat the success at future events, too.

They become keepsakes. When organizers develop an essential event booklet that also looks great and reflects the tone and feel of an event, attendees may choose to hang on to the publication. Not only does the booklet contain helpful notes, names of presenters or key participants, and a record of the different offerings and activities that took place at the event, but the event booklet also may include special event-only content that is worth keeping. These keepsakes can help businesses and event organizers to stay at the front of a participant’s mind for days or years beyond an event.

Creating a Useful and Impactful Event Booklet

Develop and design a booklet that will benefit both the event organizers and those who participate in the event by following five strategic design ideas.

1. Prioritize User Experience

When you consider what the booklet user wants and needs during the event, you can design the booklet so they will both use it throughout the event and want to hold on to it afterwards as well.

• Put the event schedule in a quick-access location like the first page(s) or in the centerfold of a larger booklet. The back cover can also be a great spot for a schedule overview.
• Finding breakout sessions or hourly event schedules, cluster like times together to make finding the right activity easier: am and pm groupings, single-day lists, even or odd-day lists, or any other organization that breaks down your specific event into logical, smaller chunks.
• Keep the event details for each session near the page that lays out the day’s schedule. This keeps users from having to flip back and forth through the booklet, causing frustration and leading to unhappy participants who can’t easily find what they need.
• Consider including extras in your event booklet that help users outside of the planned sessions. Information about meals and snacks provided by the conference can help busy attendees know when and where to go for food. Lists of local coffee shops or cafes that offer quick grab-and-go before early sessions can help fuel happy participants, while a short list of area restaurants that are perfect to unwind after a busy day or meet up with important conference attendees can be a valuable inclusion.

2. Craft for Readability

At the end of the day, the booklet should be designed to be easy to read and legible at a glance so event participants can quickly find the information that they need.

• Include details like a table of contents for longer booklets.
• Keep the layout consistent from the first page to the last, using color and graphic elements to add interest.
• Use uniform typography throughout the whole booklet
• Utilize hierarchy to indicate importance so readers can intuitively understand key information.

3. Remember White Space

Places for participants to take notes should not be an afterthought or only in the margins of a booklet. Instead, develop your booklet so conference attendees know that their input and thoughts matter, so they will want to engage with the speakers in sessions or events in a way that is most meaningful to them.

• Add labels with white space or lines with headers like “Key Takeaways” adjacent to session descriptions
• Include an area specifically for participants to record new contacts made at the event
• Include blank or lined space on session pages
• Put a section labeled “notes” at the back of the booklet

4. Make it a Keepsake

Think about what makes your conference or event special and lean into that so your booklet will become a treasured keepsake for participants.

• Create an appealing event logo for the booklet cover that reflects the spirit of the event
• Include an overview of current industry trends or other notable information that will be helpful after the event has concluded
• Include evergreen industry content so participants can turn back to it for reference in the future
• Spotlight keynote speakers or noteworthy participants and businesses or organizations that contributed to the success of the event

5. Focus on Professionalism

You want your event participants to hold an event booklet in their hands that looks as great as it functions. So always think about how you can present your event information in a way that shows you take your business seriously, with a booklet that looks professionally crafted.

• Avoid artsy or unique fonts and stick with Times New Roman or other fonts with high readability.
• Consider using sturdy paper for your booklet’s cover pages to give it durability and protection from heavy use at the event.
• Design pages with a clear one-inch margin around each page so pages don’t look overstuffed with content.
• Proofread your booklet before sending it off to the printer. Consider letting multiple people review the final draft or hiring a professional editor to help catch those small errors in spelling, word choice, and formatting that make a project appear homemade instead of professional.
• Think about using a graphic design expert to lay out your booklet’s content, come up with graphic elements or design your booklet’s cover.

 Printing Your Event Booklet

When you have put together a final draft of your event booklet, turn to a printing company that can give you a gorgeous booklet you will be proud to hand out at your event. Publishing Xpress has worked with many organizers over the years, helping them to present a beautiful booklet made with quality materials to their event participants.

Your event will run more smoothly, participants will have everything they need right in their hands to make it to all of your planned sessions and meetings, and event organizers can stay on schedule because attendees will know just where to go for each session. Partnering with Publishing Xpress will help you make your next event a huge success, starting with the convenience of a beautiful booklet ready to hand out to all of your event participants.