Magazine Design and Layout Research
When producing a magazine, it is very important that the design of it is appealing for viewers no matter what genre the magazine is. In this post, there will be 10 tips on how to design a magazine in a way that will make its appearance more appealing to the reader:
1. Illustrations can be very impactful.
Many magazines feature photos for their images throughout their magazines, but in some cases having an illustration can be more appealing to the readers and will incline them to read further. By adding illustrations, magazines will also be able to look very unique when compared to other magazines. As seen in the image below, using illustrations can give a very modern and design-heavy feeling to readers.
The way that designers are able to make these illustrations is by manipulating vector artwork. Vector artwork is made up of what is call vector graphics, which are lines, curves, and shapes based on mathematical formulas. This artwork is useful because no matter how much it gets scaled, the illustration will not appear to have changed its resolution. Designers are able to make these vector graphics by using apps such as Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, or Inkscape. Using this form of art, magazines are able to have a more consistent appearance between their magazines in order to promote a brand look that readers will remember.
2. Stick to a style theme.
When making a magazine, it is best to keep the same design style throughout the whole magazine. The factors that must be kept consistent may include typography, color palette, shapes, graphics, and page number styles. This helps magazines appear more professional to the reader.
As seen in the image above, the magazine keeps the same colors, shapes, and fonts in order to improve its design.
3. Use a focus point for covers.
When making covers, it is best to have a focus point, then build everything around it. Some examples of what can be used as a focus point includes the masthead and the main image. Depending on the genre of the magazine, different things can be used for the focus point. Fashion magazines tend to include a model as their focus point and tech magazines can have computers as their focus point. Focus points are meant to draw readers attention in order to reflect the content of the magazine.
The use of this component can be seen above, where there is a face that draws the readers attention immediately.
4. Make good use of colors and contrast.
When attempting to create a magazine cover, great amounts of thought must be put into the colors and contrast. When discovering what colors to use for a cover, it is best to first look at the main image being used. As can be seen in the image to the left, the color of the masthead coordinates with the red in the main image, and the background is a darker red color. They chose these colors to match each other then allow the white text to stand out. In the image to the right, they chose to make the masthead and the cover line contrast with the blue as the background.
By manipulating colors in this way, designers can both draw viewers attention to specific areas and make the cover pleasing to the eye.
5. Find the perfect font combinations for the cover.
The fonts that are used on the cover are just as important as the main image, as they are one of the first things that a reader will see that will form their impression on the magazine.
As can be seen in the magazine below by Vogue, they implement a variety of fonts in their aesthetically pleasing cover. They have their masthead in a bold serif font, but have their cover lines in a thinner sans serif font, alongside even smaller letters underneath the cover lines. On top of the variation in fonts that are seen, a designer can also change colors, italicize letters, and even change the typeface of some of the letters.
6. Use white space.
In both the cover and interior spreads of a magazine, white space can effect the visuals greatly. While it may feel tempting at first to completely fill up a page with content, it is not the correct approach because it makes the pages appear less aesthetically pleasing to the reader and will result with the reader feeling overwhelmed. By using white space, not only does it make the design more appealing, it can also draw attention to a specific subject such as an image.
As seen in the image above, the use of white space makes the spread feel more stylistic all while helping draw attention to the heading and the image.
7. Use the correct alignment.
One of the simplest but most effective concepts of design is the alignment of the letters. When producing a magazine, the designer should almost never set their alignment to the center. In the image below, the center aligned text looks very unappealing and will cause the readers to avoid reading it. The right aligned text is obviously out of place. This is because in the English language, it is a custom that people read from left to right, so having to defy these rules and start reading towards the right feels very awkward for many.
The best alignment to go for is either left alignment, which this post is in, and left justified. Left justified is simply left alignment, but instead the lines always end at the same exact place, which left aligned lacks.
One last thing that should be kept in mind for the text is the length of the lines. If the lines are too long, it will make the reader feel that what they are reading is never ending, and will cause them to avoid it. However, this doesn't mean that lines should be kept short. If a line is kept short, it will make the reader feel as if they are exerting energy or doing a chore, which will also result in readers avoiding the body text.
8. Use grids and layouts.
One of the easiest ways to make the layout of a magazine is to use grids. This grids can be used anywhere in a magazine, whether it is the cover, the spreads, or even the table of contents.
In the image above, the designer used grid lines in order to balance out all of the elements on the cover. By using this grid, the cover looks more organized, with there being adequate white space, a good position for the main image, and just making the cover just appear better overall.
Even though these grids are very useful for magazines, they still are very simple to use. This helps cut time tremendously for designers.
And although the grid is there for everything to line up perfectly, this doesn't mean that you have to completely follow it with no other alternatives. Designers often break the grid for an added impact to readers.
Finally, there is not only one grid layout that can be used. Instead, when designing a layout designers tend to find the perfect grid for their intentions out of the very large quantity that can be found on the internet, and in some cases these designers can even construct their own grid layout.
9. Perfect the contents page.
While the cover of a magazine is the first thing a reader will see and will ultimately decide if they purchase the magazine or not, the contents page is just as important. Once a reader buys a magazine, the first thing they will go to is the contents page. Though a contents page is traditionally used as an area where readers can skip directly to what topics they are interested in, adding style to it is still important. If a contents page of a magazine lacks visual appeal, the viewer will have second thoughts about reading it.
As for actually designing the contents page, a designer must first decide if there is enough content for a single page or if it is better to take a whole spread. Using a whole spread encourages a large "Contents" heading and images to add to the design of the pages, as can be seen above. Another thing that designers will implement in the contents design is a grid layout, as mentioned in the previous tip. There may even be several fonts and colors that can be included as well, depending on what the designer desires.
10. Use a portrait for the main image.
Many of the most renowned magazines often use a portrait image of a popular person as their main image. This can be anyone from celebrities on fashion magazines or even people with authority on a specific topic, such as using an image of Elon Musk on a tech magazine, as is seen below.
The reason why doing this is beneficial for a magazine is that whenever a reader is browsing the many magazines that can be found at a store, seeing a portrait image of someone that they are interested in will pique their interest and be curious in what happens in the magazine. This causes people to purchase these magazines, which increases the sales of magazines.
However, just putting a portrait image isn't enough for these effects, and there is one additional step. This is simply making sure the individual in the image is maintaining eye contact in the image. This is needed because readers tend to draw connections to the person in the image because of eye contact.
All of these points can be used in tech magazines. The cover to the right by Wired demonstrates this perfectly.
To begin with, they feature many colors that contrast well, alongside different fonts. This gives a modernistic feeling in many cases and make the cover appealing.
The main image is a portrait image that is used at the focus point. In this main image, the person, Jeff Bezos, is maintaining perfect eye contact. This is excellent, because the viewers' attention is immediately drawn to Jeff Bezos, an extremely popular figure. Viewers will also feel some sort of connection due to the eye contact. This tremendously helps make people interested about the magazine, which helps increase sales.
It is also very likely that a grid was used to find the layout based on the perfect positioning of the coverlines and the main image.
In the picture below, there is a table of contents page that is also by Wired. They use illustrations all over to increase the modernism and visual appeal of the spread. There is also clear use of white space to help direct eyes throughout the pages.
By using all of these methods on tech magazines, the general conventions of them will be met because the magzazine will be able to appear more modernistic and interesting to readers
Conclusion:
There are many ways that a designer can improve their magazines in order to increase the aesthetic appeal. All of these effects can be used on any magazine, though designers will still have to get creative in order for these to be effective.
Sources:
Dolores, Delia. “The 10 Golden Rules of Magazine Cover Design.” Flipsnack Blog, 16 Dec. 2021, blog.flipsnack.com/how-to-design-professional-magazine-covers/.
Fussell, Grace. “10 Tips for Designing High-Impact Magazines.” Design & Illustration Envato Tuts+, Envato Tuts, 15 June 2020, design.tutsplus.com/articles/10-tips-for-designing-high-impact-magazines--cms-25956.
Stribley, Mary. “15 Reasons Why Grid Approach Will Improve Your Design .” Canva, www.canva.com/learn/grid-design/.
Morris, Sam. “5 Pro Tricks to Instantly Improve Your Magazine Layouts.” InDesignSkills, 12 Oct. 2021, www.indesignskills.com/inspiration/magazine-layout-design/.
Todd, Dylan. “Vector Art: What Is Vector Art? | Adobe.” Adobe, www.adobe.com/creativecloud/illustration/discover/vector-art.html.
“Magazine Layout Design: Helpful Tips & Guide with Examples.” PGBS, 24 Jan. 2022, www.proglobalbusinesssolutions.com/magazine-layout-design/.
Kanti, Andina. “Magazine Design: 9 Incredible Tips You Can Try Now.” MagLoft, 5 May 2021, www.magloft.com/blog/incredible-magazine-design-tips/.
Alscher, Daniella. “Magazine Layout: 6 Tips to Fine-Tune Your Spread - G2.” G2, 26 June 2019, www.g2.com/articles/magazine-layout.
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