Principles of Magazine Design JOUR 500 Contemporary Magazine
Rules of Magazine Design Design for function, not for decoration Good design facilitates reading Good design draws the reader in Good design leads the reader Good design has multiple points of entry – headlines, decks, photos or illustrations, cutlines, sidebars while being clean and simple
Department heading Headline Deck Byline Body copy Pull quote or call out Art Folio
Two-page spread Think of two facing pages as a single unit unless there’s a full- page ad
Two-page spread
Four Elements of a Page Every magazine page is made up of four elements: Art (graphics, photos, illustrations) Text Headlines/titles and subheads/decks Captions
Elements of a page And don’t forget white space
Art Every page or two-page spread should have a dominant piece of art, a single focal point
Let photos tell the story
Unity Magazines should be consistent – style, typeface, color palette, use of white space Consistent design helps give a magazine personality
Unity: Typography Limit yourself to just a few fonts: One for body copy Another for department titles A third for photo cutlines Use special fonts for display headlines
Typography Find creative ways to use type in display headlines
Consistency
Trend: Brief text, lots of images
Trend: Celebrity covers
Anatomy of a Magazine Cover logo image Cover lines White space Issue date price
Anatomy of a Magazine Cover logo image Cover lines White space Issue date price
Covers: Poster
Covers: One theme, one image
Covers: Multitheme, One-image
Covers: Multitheme, Multi-image
Covers: All Typographic