A Small Look into Editorial and Magazine Design
I have always been interested in editorial design and how layout and grid are built to create many publications, books and magazines, ever since I completed a publication project in the second year of my studies.
This blog will talk about magazine design, and I will analyse some examples of magazines that use good practice.
The three important elements of magazine design are:
- Layout
- Visuals
- Headline
These elements above make up a magazine spread, and it is important to place them in the right place to have a successful design, using a grid system, for example, by making columns and rows which help with this. When designing a magazine, it is also important to design the spread as one consistent whole and not just individual pages, so that the spread is one piece of art. Another feature to think about is the hierarchy, to guide the reader through the pages and make important information noticeable. The type of the body copy needs to be readable, so the font should be clear and the point size big enough to be able to read it.
This is an old fashion magazine created by Alexey Brodovitch. What I find most interesting about this spread is the relationship between the text and the image, for example, how the text is in a similar shape as the model in the image. The spread is all in black and white as photos in those days were printed in monochrome. The type is serif typeface.
Another spread I find interesting is from a food magazine called Fleishigs. The focus of the spread is the image which takes up a full page and one half. The text is aligning itself to the left side of the image. The spread is only using one column for the body copy while the title, also on the left, is out of the grid, which can work in some cases like this if done properly. The title is vertical. The title font is a san seif typeface where the body copy is using a seif type.
Other Examples:
