First things first
Ask yourself a few questions?

What image do you want your company to portray?

What market are you aiming for?
Make your business image attract your market!!

Do you have a logo?
Try and match your price lists to your colours

Paper Sizing and Folding - English sizes (American sizes do differ)
A4 is 297mm x 210mm
A5 is A4 folded in half ie 148mm x 210mm
A6 is A5 folded in half 105mm x 148mm
3 fold leaflets are more tricky - take an A4 sheet landscape fold it into 3 sections 2x100mm and 1x97mm wide (you need a shorter side to fold in or your leaflet won’t lie flat when folded.
Decide how much text you have and choose the appropriate paper size to fit!

Make a quick paper mock up of each and see which would be best for you also add thumbnail sketches of what you want to put on your price lists to see how it might look and if it will fit..

Design and Layout Tips
Keep headlines and wording brief and include only the most essential information.
Take time to proof-read. Check clarity, spelling and punctuation very carefully as errors like this can look unprofessional!
Choose an easy-to-read typeface. Avoid using all capital letters, stacking headlines vertically or arranging type at an angle, unless a special effect is needed.
Vary the size of the type (within the readable range) to show the levels of importance of different parts of the message. Make important information larger and less important information smaller.
Make samples of text using different typefaces and sizes to see how easy they are to read from the desired viewing distance. Good type sizes for the main reading areas of printed materials like newsletters are 10, 11 or 12-point. Type sizes for presentation graphics, posters and displays should be larger.

Fonts
Serif typefaces ie Times Roman, for example are the most readable for large areas of small type in printed materials like newsletters or books. Sans serif typefaces ie Helvetica, for example are usually good choices for headlines or for video graphics.
Using too many different typefaces and sizes in one design project can cause confusion and make the layout look too cluttered for easy reading.
Large areas of ranged right or centred type are harder to read than ranged left. Use these alignments occasionally for special emphasis or, in the case of centred type, for a formal design.
Match the headline typefaces you use to your message. Type can be used to express many different moods, from formal and serious to playful or comical. Remember that readability is the most important thing. Avoid using stylised typefaces for your body copy or main reading area.
Don’t squash your text in - spaced out looks more classier - don’t space things out too far though or it will look like you are trying to fill space!

Colour
Use Colour to catch people’s attention and also as a tool for directing the viewer’s gaze through the message.
A simple Colour scheme of one or two colours, with only one of the colours being a highlight Colour, can often communicate more effectively than a design that uses a rainbow of colours.
Use Colour to highlight important information, show levels of information and organise material.
Colour can create a mood or an emotional response.
Warm hues (yellows, oranges, reds) will appear larger and closer. Cool hues (greens, blues) will appear smaller and farther away.

Layout
Use formal (symmetrical) balance primarily for formal, serious communication.
Use informal (asymmetrical) balance for topics that call for a more dynamic and interesting treatment.
Plan for open space in your design. Use open space to visually balance areas of text or artwork. If used properly, it can keep your design from appearing too cluttered.

Using Images
Pictures taken off the internet are usually JPEGS and sometimes GIFS. GIFS are not designed for printing, only for viewing on a screen. Computer Images are made of little dots (pixels). If you try to re-size the image upwards these dots can become distorted/blurred and you lose the definition of the image.
Internet pictures are almost always fixed at 72dpi (pixels per inch), but to print a really clear and sharp image we need 300dpi, otherwise known as high resolution. Therefore images from websites or that have been created for website use are useless for printing - they will look fuzzy - known as pixelated.
Do not re-size GIFS/JPEGS, but if you do, make them smaller not bigger!
As to increase the resolution you must make the image smaller or it will blur!
The best graphics for printing are EPS and TIF files saved at 300dpi.
BEAR IN MIND IMAGES ARE 4 COLOUR OR GRAYSCALE UNLESS CHANGE TO MONOTONE (ONE COLOUR)!

Using Digital Photographs
It is easy to change the print size of digital photos... usually with little or no loss in quality. If you want to do this, look in your photo editing software for an "Image Size,". When you use this command you will be presented with a dialog box where you can change pixel dimensions, print size, and resolution (DPI).



PROFESSIONAL PRINTING?? READ?ON!
The most cost effective option for professional printing is 1 or 2 colour.
4 colour process printing is costly!! and only worth it if you are having thousands printed at a time.
So choose one or two spot colours from the pantone range.
In offset printing, a spot Colour is any Colour generated by an ink (pure or mixed) that is printed using a single run.
When printing, every spot Colour needs its own lithographic film or plate. All the areas of the same Colour are printed using one film/plate, then the next film will print the other Colour etc.
The more colours the more film/plates the more the cost!! so try to stick to just one or two! (unless its a digital printers then that's a whole new ballgame!)

Colours RGB or CMYK?
Everything that you see on your computer screen is (RGB) - created out of the colours Red, Green and Blue.
Printing, however, is undertaken in CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) which work together to create hundreds of colours plus contrasts, tones and half-tones. Artwork created in Publisher, Word, Paintshop etc will be RGB.
This is fine for printing on your own deskjet printers etc but will need to change if you have anything professionally done.

What is Resolution?
Resolution in printing terms refers to the dots of ink that make up a picture. The term DPI (dots per inch) is probably a familiar term if you've bought or used a printer, a scanner, or a digital camera. DPI is one measure of resolution.
ie 72dpi is 72 dots per square inch
300dpi is 300 dots per square inch - the more dots the higher the resolution - the better the quality

How Many Dots?
Whether printed on paper or displayed on your computer screen, a picture is made up of tiny little dots. There are colour dots and there are black dots. In black and white printing, the size and shape of the black dots and how close or far apart they are printed creates the illusion of shades of grey.
The more little dots that are used (up to a point) the clearer the picture.
The more dots in a picture, the larger the size of the graphic file.
Resolution is measured by the number of dots in a horizontal or vertical inch.

Bleed
Bleed is a term that refers to ink that prints all the way to the edge of a trimmed page - so if your design calls for ink to extend right to the edge of the paper (the "trim"), your ink is "bleeding" off the page and you need to build a bleed margin into your artwork.
Printed pieces that have a white border or white around the edges DO NOT bleed, but if you have images or backgrounds that you want to print right to the edge of the paper you must design your job larger than the final finished trimmed size. To achieve a full bleed document we need to actually cut through this area of extended image/background.
To create bleeds, make your document larger than the final finished cut size. Make your document 3mm larger on all four sides to leave enough bleed area for a trim.



Anymore questions just ask! Think i covered everything.