This article has been written due to popular demand from our clients, who quite often have doubts about which of these formats is best to promote their business. The answer we give at a factoryfy is … it depends. We have designed hundreds of flyers, diptychs and triptychs, and we can assure you that, in general, no one format is better than the other.

The key thing to take into account, on top of the design, is the printing or production of the publicity item. For example, the production of A6 and A5 flyers is not the same. The A5 flyer will cost double as it needs double the ink and paper to print.

We could simply say that the flyer is the cheapest, the diptych the medium and the triptych the most expensive option.

On the other hand, it is important to take into consideration other characteristics that can determine the price:

The quality of paper

At this point we need to think about our strategy, our type of potential client and, of course, the budget we have when carrying out the advertising campaign. If we think about the case of a premium company, we would use 300gsm quality paper so that the client sees added extra quality when handed the publication. Obviously, this type of paper comes at a higher price, which can vary up to 50% more compared to the 135gsm option.

The print quality

Quite often, entrepreneurs or marketing directors don’t take into account the printing quality, but it is definitely one of the things that gives the impression of quality. Obviously, there are some businesses such as gold buyers and low cost companies that wish to portray humbleness and affordability by not stressing importance on the print quality. The main difference between digital and offset printing can be found in quality. The quality of offset printing is higher, although, it is only worthwhile if you are going to print a minimum of 500 copies due to the cost involved in turning on the machine.

How many copies to make

This component has a lot to do with what we have already mentioned. In digital printing, the cost of each unit doesn’t vary, in contrast to offset printing where the price decreases as the number of printed units of the same model increases. This last point is essential as clients often make the common mistake of thinking that when they ask for 2 different designs, the total amount of units printed of both designs equals the total number of offset prints. This is simply not the case. In fact, these are two separate offset printing models entirely and if each model isn’t making a considerable number of prints, the cost isn’t worthwhile.

The graphic design of flyers, diptychs and triptychs

The graphic design of a flyer, diptych or triptych doesn’t vary too much, especially in companies like factoryfy where the prices are fixed. If we had to determine which one is more expensive in terms of design development time, it would be the triptych, followed by the diptych and the flyer, which is the cheapest.

Before making a decision about the printing formats we have just spoken about, it is important for these aspects to be in place:

• The vector logo
• A clear definition of the campaign objective
• A clear publicity message
• A mailing strategy

• The FlyerIn the leaflet world, a flyer can be considered as the first line of contact, which is cheap and impacting. It is the ideal format when doing large scale mailings for special offers.The most commonly used sizes are A6 and A5, with some intermediate sizes whose proportions are different (more extended, horizontal, etc.)
• The DiptychThe diptych is the second contestant in line, which is reserved for publications that wish to provide more information. The company’s services can be described in its inside section.The most common format is a folded A4 piece of paper with the crease in the centre.
• The TriptychThe triptych is the king of standard leaflets. It has 6 sections and can be folded in a variety of different ways (accordion, envelope, etc.), providing lots of creative freedom when distributing the information.
  Without a doubt, this is set aside for a more selective publication (its production is more expensive), leaving its more fleeting, temporary promotions to its younger leaflet siblings.