Magazine Design and Editing
Magazine layout
Every wonder how are magazines are put together? Who writes the articles? Who designs the layout? And who makes the final decision before they are sold in newsstands or place on the web?
Each each of a magazine, or newspaper, has a team of professionals who work together to make each edition. The success or failure of the publication depends on the final product, and that decision falls on a person called the Editor. This person holds an extremely important position since they make the final decision before the magazine is printed and sold. Their livelihood (salary) depends heavily on the Editor's vision and decision. He or she has to make decision whether articles, headlines, pictures are used or ignored for each publication.
In this project, you will the Editor of your own magazine. You will write, design, and send off to print your own article. Are you up for the challenge? Your career depends on it.
Each each of a magazine, or newspaper, has a team of professionals who work together to make each edition. The success or failure of the publication depends on the final product, and that decision falls on a person called the Editor. This person holds an extremely important position since they make the final decision before the magazine is printed and sold. Their livelihood (salary) depends heavily on the Editor's vision and decision. He or she has to make decision whether articles, headlines, pictures are used or ignored for each publication.
In this project, you will the Editor of your own magazine. You will write, design, and send off to print your own article. Are you up for the challenge? Your career depends on it.
Your Task as the Editor
In this project, you will be three people in one, the Journalist (who writes the article), the Graphic Designer (designer of the magazine layout, and the Editor (the person who approves the final product for submission.
What is the article about?
The success of the article will be based on a topic that captures the interest of many people so you need to know who is the Target Audience (a group of people who have the same interest).
The Topics
From the following topics, choose one topic to focus your article on. You will then do online research about the topic and put in together in a magazine layout format. The guidelines of the topic is listed further down this webpage.
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Article Guidelines
Every article has different guidelines which the author uses to compose so that the reader becomes well informed and enjoys reading more of your articles.
The following are links to sites which offer guides depending what kind of article you want to write:
The following are links to sites which offer guides depending what kind of article you want to write:
- Interviews - Tips for interviewing someone for a documentary
- Movie Review - How to write a movie review
- Game Review - How to write a movie review
- Book Review - How to write a book review
- Tech Review - How to write a tech device review
Article Layout - The Good, The Bad, and the Huh?!
Believe it or not, magazine layout is a very important part of the process. Most designs follow a Grid system which has 2-5 columns, and successful magazines use this grid system to align the text, the pictures, and even the spacing between all these elements.
Now that you have written your article, how will you presented it? What pictures will you use? What colors best fit the style? These are the decisions of a graphic designer.
To help you with your design, here are some examples of good ideas to follow and bad examples of what to avoid.
Now that you have written your article, how will you presented it? What pictures will you use? What colors best fit the style? These are the decisions of a graphic designer.
To help you with your design, here are some examples of good ideas to follow and bad examples of what to avoid.
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The Good...
easy to read, clean look
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Clean layout, easy to read
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Color doesn't interfere with the text
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Creative use of artwork
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Colorful, yet not confusing
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The Bad...
unorganized, not planned correctly
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Images are set to close to the edge
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The columns are too thin causing broken words
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What happened to her head?!
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Was a grid used here?
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and The Huh?!
layout is not planned for the reader's pleasure.
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The text does not flow correctly - which is the next paragraph? And oh yeah, one of the paragraphs falls on the crease between the two pages.
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Where do you start reading from? And from which column?! Definitely perplexing.
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Everything is too tight; not enough space is provided between the columns nor the text around the woman.
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Your Article Layout
Ready to create your magazine layout? There are two ways which you can produce it: Create your own, or use one of the templates provided.
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Microsoft Word
Download the MS Word Template - use this template in MS Word document and customize it.
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Adobe Photoshop
Download the Photoshop template - This offers the most creative way to design your article.
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Create Your Own
Video Tutorial - This 1-minute video shows how to create columns using MS Word.
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Article Rubric
The following rubric will be used to evaluate your final article. Remember that grammar and punctuation are very important in all projects.
| Category | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Organization | The story is very well organized. One idea or scene follows another in a logical sequence with clear transitions. | The story is pretty well organized. One idea or scene may seem out of place. Clear transitions are used. | The story is a little hard to follow. The transitions are sometimes not clear. | Ideas and scenes seem to be randomly arranged. |
| Focus on Assigned Topic | The entire story is related to the assigned topic and allows the reader to understand much more about the topic. | Most of the story is related to the assigned topic. The story wanders off at one point, but the reader can still learn something about the topic. | Some of the story is related to the assigned topic, but a reader does not learn much about the topic. | No attempt has been made to relate the story to the assigned topic. |
| Accuracy of Facts | All facts presented in the story are accurate. | Almost all facts presented in the story are accurate. | Most facts presented in the story are accurate (at least 70%). | There are several factual errors in the story. |
| Spelling and Punctuation | There are no spelling or punctuation errors in the final draft. Character and place names that the author invented are spelled consistently throughout. | There is one spelling or punctuation error in the final draft. | There are 2-3 spelling and punctuation errors in the final draft | The final draft has more than 3 spelling and punctuation errors. |
| Images / Illustrations | Illustrations are detailed, attractive, creative and relate to the text on the page. | Illustrations are somewhat detailed, attractive, and relate to the text on the page. | Illustrations do not relate to the story | No images are present in the article |