Magazine design

[marlene]

Can anyone recommend any good books about magazine design?

mxh

[ktinkel]

Can anyone recommend any good books about magazine design?None so great that they stick in my mind. I had (have but cannot find) many books by Jan White that helped, especially these:


Graphic Idea Notebook: A treasury of solutions to visual problems
Editing by Design: For designers, art directors and editors (updated and in print)
Designing for Magazines: Common problems, realistic solutions (easy to find used — check Amazon)
Most of the recent books I have seen are more eye candy and useful, with lots of gorgeous covers and spreads from very expensive mags. Don’t know about you, but the mags I have worked on were all much more modest, with really down-and-dirty problems to solve.

But I have also noticed one recent book (Jan’s are from the 1970s and 80s) that looks as if it has some substance, though I have not read it (yet: couldn’t resist — just ordered it from Amazon):

Surprise Me: Editorial Design by Horst Moser
And some of the annuals will give you ideas:

The annuals from the Society of Publication Designers
What sort of magazine are you going to design? Full-color or 1 or 2 color? On slick/coated or matte stock? With a lot of pictures and bleeds or not? With ads?

[Norman Hathaway]

there aren't any!

there's a good book on well designed magazines by william owen. but that's about all i would recommend.

bad huh?

[marlene]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm making a list and will try to get to a bookstore this weekend (famous last words ...)

The magazine is currently 4-color, coated stock, full bleed, with ads. Not a huge number of photos -- lots of mug shots, a cover story with photos on the cover and the inside spread, and other photos depending on the article content. Articles about events, for example, will usually have several bad photos taken with cheap digital cameras.

It's an association publication, so it's got a limited budget. Although I've been doing the production for years, I didn't design it -- the client paid a marketing firm to handle the design. I'm not absolutely positive I'll be doing the redesign, but there's a fair chance.

mxh

[marlene]

Well, I'll get to a bookstore and have a look-see. I'll also pick up some new magazines and see if I get inspired.

mxh

[terrie]

Had a thought...isn't there some sort of Association of Associations--you know what I mean??? I wonder if there is such and organization that they might not have access/samples of different member association publications and those might give you some ideas?

Also...have you thought about looking to see what Before&After might have available???

Terrie

[ktinkel]

Although I've been doing the production for years, I didn't design it -- the client paid a marketing firm to handle the design. I'm not absolutely positive I'll be doing the redesign, but there's a fair chance.There’s nothing like production to make the weak parts of a design abundantly clear! And it sounds like a lot of fun.

BTW, I found White’s Designing for Magazines, and do think it might be useful — so long as you can get past the very dated details, which are seriously 70s.

It is useful for foundation stuff: How to handle the mast, TOC, and so on, in philosophical terms. (I wish our local community magazine had read a book like this — then maybe it wouldn’t take some element that ought to be tiny and recessive and make it large and prominent, evidently because there was space left over!)

Anyway, if you run across it, take a look. Maybe buy it, if it seems to cover opinions you’d like to have support for when talking to the publisher.

[ktinkel]

I wonder if there is such and organization that they might not have access/samples of different member association publications and those might give you some ideas?The Society of Publication Designers produces annuals (and probably a magazine), which features magazine design.

Most of the design magazines, certainly including Print and CA, feature magazine design (with other kinds), in both issues and annuals. How and Step probably have some features about magazines.

But if she wants to see a lot of mags, a good newsstand in the place. Or busy doctors’ offices — especially the upscale ones — as they are likely to have a dozen or more different magazines, free for the study, replete with chairs to sit in! My implant dentist always has Saveur, Chili Pepper, Food & Wine, Golf something, horse publications (he has several), Restaurant Management (he has a stake in a local place), as well as People, Time, etc. It’s a good thing, too, as he tends to run late.

[terrie]

kt: But if she wants to see a lot of mags, a good newsstand in the place.True...but my guess is that an association mag is quite different from commercial mags...maybe not???

And if nothing else, looking at association mags would give one an idea if there are patterns of design/layout specific to that type of mag, what sorts of things to keep and what sorts of things to avoid/modify...

Terrie

[ktinkel]

True...but my guess is that an association mag is quite different from commercial mags...maybe not???

And if nothing else, looking at association mags would give one an idea if there are patterns of design/layout specific to that type of mag, what sorts of things to keep and what sorts of things to avoid/modify...Absolutely. But I do not know of any clearinghouse on such publications other than the Society of Publication Designers though.

There are differences, for sure. But the structural elements — the skeleton of the magazine — are not so very different.

[marlene]

I'm not aware of any organization that would have a "library" of association publications, unfortunately. I do have a stack of Before & Afters -- I'll dig those out and see if they have anything on mag design.

mxh

[marlene]

I just found an SPD Best Magazine Design annual from 1993! (I have an assortment of various old annuals, but they are behind Sasha's crate, which she is currently occupying, and I don't have the heart to disturb her. She loves to den. I'll check the other books later after she goes upstairs.)

I've got stacks and stacks of Print and HOW. Going through them all to find articles on mag design would be a chore. I wonder if there's some sort of master index somewhere?

The best newsstand close by is at Borders, and it ain't that great (we've got a small Borders). But I'll be near a big Barnes & Noble tomorrow, and maybe they've got a better mag section. I'll also check out the books.

Doc office isn't a bad idea, but the magazine selection in our Kaiser offices is rather motley. I suspect most of them are castoffs from the doctors' personal subscriptions (one left his address labels intact).

I can also try the library -- it's practically walking distance, and I haven't set foot in the place in years.

mxh

[marlene]

I'm realizing that one big diff between association mags and "commercial" mags is the cover art. After looking through an annual of great magazine covers with custom art and photography, it's obvious I'll never get the same effects with the amateur photos I have to work with!

I've check out some association web sites, but they only show their magazine covers on the web pages -- not the insides. But at least I can look at the way they handle the cover design.

mxh

[marlene]

There’s nothing like production to make the weak parts of a design abundantly clear!

Oooh, yeah. I never liked the design at all. I'm not exactly sure if the design team was part of the "branding" team, or if they just took their instructions from the branding team, but the branding is all over the place. Literally. The organization's big ugly logo is on the front cover, and the graphic element from the logo (minus the association name) is plastered on nearly every page. AND it's also used as an end bug.

The nameplate's too big and prominent. And now that they're making me put text on the photos (the bottom 2/3 page is a big photo, top 1/3 is the nameplate), it looks even worse.

I've been limited to using the client's "official" color palette -- all bright colors. There are no deep colors -- no dark blues or greens. Some of the colors are practically useless -- in a palette of five colors, one is orange, one is cherry-red, and one is a golden yellow. So I end up using the same bright blue and bright green over and over and over ...

I've got nothing against branding -- it can be a Good Thing -- but I don't agree with their decisions (but who the hell am I). The last time they did the branding thing was even worse -- the color palette was larger, but included colors like lavendar. Not purple -- lavendar. How often does a trade association use lavendar? What were these people thinking?

There are gradient headers on every page of the magazine. The type is (or was) 80% black, so it always looked faded. The leading was massive, with a full line of space between paragraphs, so we couldn't fit in enough information -- all the articles ran too long and had to jump or be cut down. I did convince the client to let me downsize the text by half a point and tighten up the leading (and it's still 3 pts), leave just half a linespace between paragraphs, AND make the text 100% black.

I wasn't allowed to get rid of the gradient headers, but was permitted to make them shallower.

The client went to a seminar on magazine design (I wish I could have gone to it!!) and did get some suggestions (many of which I had been making for months, but of course I wasn't charging them hundreds of dollars for the advice), many of which I agree with. A few were unrealistic -- don't run ads that aren't exactly the correct size (yeah, right -- turn down advertising dollars because the advertiser's designer can't follow specs), and don't run b&w mug shots (we've been trying to get some of the contributing writers -- who get their mugs in their articles -- to send color photos for years).

A big stumbling block is the cover art. We have to use photos submitted by association members, and they run the gamut. Some hire professional photographers, but most don't. And the client likes to use the photos large -- full width of the cover -- so that makes it even worse. Now that we get a lot of digital images, some aren't quite up to snuff as far as resolution, so they can get pretty grainy when used a full page width.

And that's not going to change. My challenge is to try to come up with a cover concept that will accommodate less-than-lovely photos, but I don't think the client will even consider making the photos smaller than full page width.

I keep telling them there's a limit to what can be done in Photoshop to manipulate a small or poor-quality image ...

But the first thing I want to do is convince them not to use their big ugly logo on the cover. That would be a good first step.

mxh

[terrie]

marlene: I keep telling them there's a limit to what can be done in Photoshop to manipulate a small or poor-quality image ...Would seeing is understanding/believing work??

Are you up for doing some mock-ups?

If so, could you design a cover as you think it should be done using a bad quality user-submitted photo and size it appropriately along with how you think their logo should be used.

Then do a cover as they currently do--actually, you probably have one so you wouldn't need to do it yourself unless you are using a different "bad" photo...

With this approach, they could actually (well, theoretically) see the difference.

Is this a viable approach for you?

Terrie

[terrie]

marlene: I've check out some association web sites, but they only show their magazine covers on the web pages -- not the insides. But at least I can look at the way they handle the cover design.Do you think any of them might be willing to send you a copy of their mag if you asked?

Terrie

[ktinkel]

I'm realizing that one big diff between association mags and "commercial" mags is the cover art. After looking through an annual of great magazine covers with custom art and photography, it's obvious I'll never get the same effects with the amateur photos I have to work with!When I was working on the U.N.-affiliate’s quarterly magazine, 24–32 pages, printed on newsprint in full color for one sig, black only on the other, I too was afflicted by poor amateur photos of really significant events or people. (It used to be dark silk prints from the drugstore; later it was really pathetically under-pixeled digital images, also too dark.)

My solution was not to use photos large on the cover. Instead we ran cover text summarizing the major story (sort of a callout) in large size (18-point all-caps Peignot, in fact; I nearly plotzed when they accepted that one — but it definitely worked!), with a small photo as well. Sometimes it would be an entire image a couple of inches tall; sometimes it would be a cropped out portion.

The magazine was mailed to subscriber/members, so it did not have to compete on the newsstand. (It resembled nothing so much as The Nation magazine in size, stock, and layout, in fact.)

[ktinkel]

Surprise me — Editorial design by Horst Moser is one good book on magazines.

It is not exactly a how-to sort of book; nor is it an annual-type pretty-picture collection. It has aspects of both, but Moser uses the covers to illustrate particular points about magazine design, so it has much more coherence than most annuals.

And the covers (or pages) may come from any period — all are chosen to help hiim makes his point. The book is also a collection of most of the truly important magazine designs for the past 70 years, beginning with Brodovitch.

The covers are gorgeous, of course, but I like best the sections on types of pages and on themes (sport, erotica, food, travel, fashion, etc.).

Most of his examples are high-end, but the content is useful for any sort of magazine design-thinking exercise. And you will love handling and looking at this book. It costs about $50 at Amazon. You can look at it at Mark Batty, Publisher’s web site (http://www.markbattypublisher.com/servlet/book_view?number=16) (where it is $75).

[marlene]

My guess would be that they would only send out copies to potential members. Most associations that I've worked with don't print a lot of extra copies of their periodicals -- sometimes I have trouble even getting sample copies of stuff I've worked on!

mxh

[marlene]

The magazine was mailed to subscriber/members, so it did not have to compete on the newsstand. (It resembled nothing so much as The Nation magazine in size, stock, and layout, in fact.)

This also goes out only to members. In the old days (pasteup), it was printed in two colors and the cover had two smallish b&w photos. But now they just love their full-size, full-color photos. Despite the variable quality of the photos we have to use, I don't think they would even consider using small photos again, especially since none of the other magazines they like use small photos.

What they don't seem to understand is that the magazines they like (non-association magazines available on newsstands) don't have to cope with mediocre cover photos. -- they obviously get professionally shot photos, high-quality stock photos, or custom artwork.

mxh

[marlene]

Oh, I'll definitely have to do mock-ups. Probably dozens of them. (I'm not kidding.)

I don't think they should use their logo on the cover at all.

Part of the problem is that everything is done by committee. Everyone in the organization will have a different opinion on what looks good. It's really difficult to make everyone happy.

mxh

[marlene]

Ooooh, looks nice. It's the kind of book I used to buy at the Print magazine book sales -- books I couldn't really afford (especially since I usually didn't have much use for them) but could not resist.

I didn't get to the bookstore this weekend, of course. Other errands and father-in-law's day got in the way.

mxh

[ktinkel]

Ooooh, looks nice. Not to encourage rash behavior, but this one is useful, for almost anyone laying out magazine-style material. At least one could justify it that way — there are words amid the pictures, and most of them make very good sense.

[Norman Hathaway]

Contemporary Newspaper Design (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/09...8873638?ie=UTF8): Shaping the News in the Digital Age : Typography & Image on Modern Newsprint

Modern Magazine Design (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0697147916/qid=1151262510/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8727916-8873638?s=books&v=glance&n=283155)



::

[marlene]

I've added both titles to my list.