If you need to design a brochure, make sure you read the article first to find out which software is good for you to use in creating the brochure design.

Choosing the right software, and continuing to use it over time, is a surefire way to speed up your design workflow.

Adobe tools are a common starting place. In this article, we will compare InDesign, Illustrator, and Adobe Spark (free offering) as different options for creating a brochure design.

We’ll look at the pros and cons of each (including cost), and suggest which option is best for different types of brochure design projects.

1. InDesign

Adobe InDesign was created for designing print projects. Most designers open InDesign first for any type of printed multi-page layout because it is best suited for this type of project.

Pros of InDesign

• Made for handling lots of text with styles for establishing rules for copy blocks
• Master Pages functionality so you can create a common page set and apply it with one click
• Tools that make page navigation easier such as indexing and automated contents
• File handling and sizes is most efficient with InDesign because it only “contains” images from other places and does not embed them
• Easy export to print-ready formats (as well as custom print settings)
• Page setups allow for columns, grids, bleeds and print specifications
• Direct brochure to online publication settings
• Most downloadable templates come in InDesign format
• Spread layouts let you see pages as connected units
• Native files are generally accepted by many print shops (as are package files)
• Great export compression, with multiple options

Cons of InDesign

• Price, InDesign is part of the Creative Cloud suite and comes with a monthly subscription
• Images, logos and graphics have to be imported from other places and remain linked to the file
• Extensive software than can take some time to learn
• Not usually the first thing designers learn when working with Adobe tools; Photoshop and Illustrator are more common with non-print designers

2. Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based tool created for creating scalable illustrations. You can use it to create brochures – many designs do – but the file and text handling features leave it something many users want. From Adobe: “Industry-standard vector graphics software lets you create logos, icons, images, typography, and illustrations for print, web, video, and mobile.”

Pros of Illustrator

• Ease of use for designers that are comfortable with the software
• Feeling of greater customization since you can draw and manage images inside files
• Ease of creating odd or custom layouts, such as die-cuts
• Better for brochures that are image-heavy and require repeated manipulation
• Scalable files; create a brochure and reproduce it at any size

Cons of Illustrator

• Price, Illustrator is part of the Creative Cloud suite and comes with a monthly subscription
• Large file sizes since everything lives in the created file; they can grow to massive sizes
• Page and spread management isn’t ideal here and you have to manually create page spread, grids and formatting
• Extensive software than can take some time to learn
• Export formats are not ideal for print publication

3. Adobe Spark

Spark is one of the newest software tools in the Adobe family and comes with a Creative Cloud subscription and a free version. (The free version has some limitations but is quite powerful.) Spark’s main function is to create simple online elements that can be customized and shared online.

Pros of Spark

• Ease of use; Spark is intuitive and packed with starters to make design easy
• Made for digital publishing (if that’ the format you plan to use for the brochure design)
• Flexible format will change your design from one size to another with a click and few changes
• Free
• Plenty of trendy tools, such as image filters, styled text and animations
• Software includes plenty of sharing tools
• Make a brochure design into a simple website without code

Cons of Spark

• Not made for multi-page format
• Custom manipulation can get tricky
• Not made for printed designs

Overall Assessment of Brochure Design Software Options

1. The winner of brochure design software is Adobe InDesign. It’s just made for this type of work. If you plan to do a lot of brochure designs – print or digital, but especially print, learning InDesign is definitely worth your time if it’s not a tool you already use every day. If you don’t do much of this type of work and already know Illustrator, you can make it work using that software.
2. Adobe Spark isn’t really recommended for anything that requires multiple pages or actual printing. However the Spark app is browser based, so if you need something simple on the fly, Spark might be a viable alternative.

Source: designshack.net