To get an idea of the difficulty of inserting each of these designs into an envelope, we recommend manually trying to insert the printed models you made earlier into an envelope to get an idea of why this might be.

The z-fold brochure, when being stuffed into an envelope, is easily damaged since its non-folded edges can easily get snagged on the lip of the envelope as it’s being inserted. This design lends itself to easily being stuffed in an envelope and is therefore a wise idea if you’re trying to send your design out in an envelope. This also means that there is one side that is naturally “sealed” since the other third of the page is tucked under the other. The tri-fold brochure conveniently only has one side that is “open” when it is folded, meaning that there is only one section of the brochure that will need a sticker tab to hold it shut so it can be mailed more easily. The z-fold brochure also isn’t the most convenient for mailing, which brings us to the tri-fold brochure.

It is more of an accordion type of effect when pulling this open. Unlike the tri-fold brochure, however, this design doesn’t necessarily have as much of a “suspenseful” experience to opening it. Since it divides information into three sections on two sides of a page, this design effectively creates three separate compartments that when unfolded unify to create one side of a page. If you were printing a Spanish and English version of your information, this design could work to present both in the same convenient publication. One common usage we’ve seen is for publications that are published in multiple languages. One way of simplifying the advantages of the z-fold brochure is to say that it’s more for content that you want to compartmentalize. We’ve also included GIFs of each (above and below) to show how they fold and to demonstrate some of the possible real-world implementations one could follow to make usage of the unique nature of each folding type. This printed version will serve you by acting as a physical model to help your mind’s eye conceptualize how the final version will work. To get an idea of how these templates really work, we recommend printing them out first with a desktop printer, either in color or in black and white.

So, aside from all these technical differences between the templates for the Z-fold and tri-fold brochures, what are the differences between these two brochures? And what different applications are most suitable for these brochures?

Tri fold brochure designs