Creating a Tourist Trail Map - Part 2, How to get started.

Your first question will most likely be ‘Do it all yourself?’ or ‘Do you get someone in to do some or all of it?’.

If you do most of the donkey work, i.e. speaking to the sponsors of your map to get their buy in, collecting their money and proof reading the final version then this will help keep the costs down. However always try to find someone with a track record in this sort of thing to help you out – at least with the graphic art, design, colouring, type setting and marketing style.

You also need to make sure you have enough money from your sponsors to cover the costs of professional printing, your graphic design and the distribution – if you are having it distributed. Take care, since in the UK, distribution costs attract VAT.

Some sponsors may pay for featured adverts and others will be happy with a ‘gazetteer’ entry.

You will need to decide on the type of distribution route – it’s a bit like a bus route. Ask your distributer about this. We used A-Ha as our distributer and they were very helpful.

In terms of printing you need to be careful about allowances for folding, colours and any trim and bleed issues of the colour. We used H&H Reeds for our printing, who were also very helpful. We were there for the final colour selection and the printing.

At this stage it is all about the planning and you may be surprised at how much time this eats up. Be prepared!

Next Up – The art work – Visual Persuasion