Marketing collateral design is the process of creating branded visual materials used to support sales, marketing, and communications efforts. This includes physical items like brochures, flyers, and posters, as well as digital assets such as social media graphics, pitch decks, and email templates. In short, it’s everything a prospect or client might see before, during, or after a conversation with your business.
Most companies understand they need these materials. Far fewer understand what makes them actually work.
Key Takeaways
- Marketing collateral design refers to the visual and printed materials brochures, flyers, posters, and digital assets that communicate your brand’s message consistently across every touchpoint.
- Consistent visual branding across collateral can increase revenue by up to 23%, according to Lucidpress research.
- Good collateral design is not about looking pretty; it’s about guiding a viewer toward a decision.
- Corporate assets like letterheads, presentations, and branded templates are just as critical as outward-facing marketing materials.
- A structured layout strategy is the foundation that separates professional collateral from forgettable ones.
Why Marketing Collateral Design Directly Affects Revenue
A 2019 Lucidpress study found that “consistent brand presentation across all marketing materials increases revenue by an average of 23%.” Yet the same report noted that “60% of companies struggle to maintain brand consistency across their collateral.” That gap is where money quietly leaks out.
When your brochure uses a different font from your website, or your flyer features off-brand colors, you’re not just creating visual noise. You’re undermining trust. Buyers especially in B2B environments pick up on inconsistency, even subconsciously, and it signals operational disorganization.
This is why design is not a cosmetic decision. It’s a business one.
The Core Categories of Marketing Collateral
Not all collateral serves the same purpose, and conflating them leads to wasted budget and diluted messaging.
Print Collateral
Brochures remain one of the most versatile print formats. A tri-fold brochure at a trade show does a different job than a product catalog sent to existing clients. The design has to reflect that difference layout density, call-to-action placement, and image-to-text ratio all shift depending on the distribution context.
Flyers are built for speed. A viewer will spend three to five seconds deciding whether to keep reading. Every element headline, visual hierarchy, and single CTA needs to earn that attention immediately.
Posters operate at a distance, which means they live or die by their visual impact. Typography scale and negative space are the two most commonly mishandled elements in poster design. What most people miss is that a poster with too much information is effectively invisible.
Digital and Corporate Assets
Corporate assets cover the materials used internally and externally to reinforce brand identity: email signatures, PowerPoint templates, letterheads, and proposal documents. These are often deprioritized because they feel “invisible,” but they’re frequently the first thing a potential client or partner actually touches.
If you want a solid grounding in how these assets sit within the broader branding picture, the corporate branding service framework from RemoteForce breaks down the relationship between identity design and collateral production clearly.
What Separates Good Collateral Design from Generic Work
We’ve observed a consistent pattern: companies brief designers on what they want without clarifying what the material needs to do. Those are two different conversations.
A flyer for a property launch needs to build aspiration. A services brochure for an accounting firm needs to establish credibility. The design language color palette, typography choices, imagery style should serve that goal, not just reflect a personal preference.
Three principles that hold across every format:
- Visual hierarchy first. The viewer’s eye should travel a path you’ve intentionally designed. If everything competes for attention, nothing gets it.
- White space is not wasted space. Crowded layouts signal low confidence. Premium brands use restraint.
- Consistency is trust. Every collateral piece should feel like it came from the same family.
For a deeper look at how layout decisions drive engagement, the layout design guide for marketing collaterals covers grid systems, alignment principles, and spacing ratios that apply across both print and digital formats.
Building a Collateral Design System (Not Just One-Off Pieces)
The most efficient brands don’t commission individual pieces in isolation. They build a design system a defined set of rules covering colors, type scales, image treatment, iconography, and component patterns and then apply it across every material.
This approach reduces production time, cuts revision cycles, and ensures that whether a client sees your brochure or your email signature, the experience feels coherent.
A design system also makes handoffs easier. When a new designer joins or a third-party vendor produces materials on your behalf, the system does the quality control work for you.
If you’re considering outsourcing this work, a dedicated team with cross-format experience will outperform a generalist freelancer on consistency. The graphic design services at RemoteForce offer structured collateral design support built around this kind of system thinking.
A Quick Note on Digital Collateral in 2026
Print hasn’t died, but the weight has shifted. Social media carousels, digital pitch decks, animated banners, and interactive PDFs now account for a significant share of what most marketing teams produce. The design principles remain the same, but the constraints change: screen resolution, file size, motion timing, and accessibility compliance all come into play.
One area that often gets neglected is accessibility. Color contrast ratios, readable font sizes, and alt text on digital assets are both a legal consideration in some markets and a practical one low-contrast text on a PDF is simply harder to read, and hard-to-read collateral doesn’t convert.
Make Your Collateral Work Harder
Marketing collateral is not a checklist item. Done well, a single well-designed brochure or poster can carry a sales conversation further than a dozen cold emails. Done poorly, it actively works against you.
Start by auditing what you already have. Do all your materials feel like they come from the same brand? Is the hierarchy clear? Does each piece have one obvious next step for the reader? If the answer to any of those is uncertain, that’s where the work begins.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is marketing collateral design?
Marketing collateral design is the creation of visual materials both print and digital that represent a brand and support its sales or communication goals. This includes brochures, flyers, posters, presentations, and branded templates used across customer-facing and internal touchpoints.
What is the difference between a brochure, flyer, and poster?
Brochures provide detailed information across multiple panels, suited for product or service overviews. Flyers are single-sheet formats designed for quick messaging and high distribution. Posters are large-format visuals built for impact at a distance, with minimal copy and strong imagery.
Why is consistency important in marketing collateral?
Consistent design across all collateral builds brand recognition and trust. When visual elements colors, fonts, tone align across materials, customers perceive the brand as reliable and professional. Inconsistency, even subtle, signals disorganization and can reduce confidence in the business.
What are corporate assets in design?
Corporate assets are the branded templates and documents used in everyday business operations, including letterheads, email signatures, PowerPoint decks, proposal templates, and business cards. While less visible than outward marketing materials, they shape how partners and clients perceive a brand during direct interactions.
When should a business hire a professional for collateral design?
When brand consistency, print production quality, or scalable output across multiple formats is required. DIY tools work for simple one-off needs, but professional designers bring expertise in layout, typography, print specifications, and brand alignment that significantly affects how materials perform in the real world.
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