Good magazine design is invisible. Readers notice the stories, the photography, the ideas. The layout guides them through without them realising it. Bad design gets noticed immediately.
Magazine layout is more than aesthetics. It creates hierarchy, guides the reader, establishes brand identity and drives commercial value. Every choice in typography, white space, image placement and colour either reinforces what a title stands for or undermines it. The fundamentals apply whether the output is a printed spread, a tablet edition or a responsive web page.
Design is a verb, not a noun. It's a process. It's not just shapes and colours, it's about understanding who you are, and then matching your values to those of your customers.
Andy Cowles Four design decisions that will transform the experience of your brand
Cover design deserves particular attention from specialist and B2B publishers. A cover that once lived only in print now exists as a digital thumbnail, an email header, a social media post. Getting it right means understanding not just what looks good, but who your reader is and what makes them pick you up.
Editorial design across the sector has never faced more demands. User experience, responsive layout, the balance between advertising and editorial on screen. These require design thinking that goes beyond traditional magazine design skills. Publishers who treat their digital presence as an afterthought to print are missing significant opportunities.
Below you'll find some of our best feature articles on the subject, from practical design guidance to case studies and expert interviews, alongside our latest news and industry commentary.
Design can make or break your publishing brand, so it’s worth putting in the time to get it right. There are four key areas that publishers need to focus on, says Andy Cowles.
The purpose of design is to engage readers and ensure they continue reading, says Michael Chinnery, founder of CPUK Print Publishing.
It’s not just newsstand titles that require well designed covers, says Andy Cowles. For specialist titles too, the front cover helps define the magazine and its readers.
Welcome to our latest special feature, this time looking at all aspects of content production and UX. All of the insights and opinions come from leading suppliers to the publishing sector and from senior executives at UK publishing companies.
Don’t rush to conclusions about UX issues, says OpenAthens’ Sarah Underwood; take time to understand the problem.
When it comes to image quality, publishers tend to put much more effort into pictures that appear in print than those that appear online. This, says Pixometry's John de Jong, is a mistake and one that can be easily avoided.
Welcome to our first publishing workflows special, an extended feature taking an in-depth look at all aspects of the content creation process. All of the insights and opinions come from leading suppliers of publishing software & from senior editors.
Content marketing agency, The River Group, in conjunction with Polestar, has smashed the Guinness World Record for producing the largest single edition of a magazine – the mascot of River’s #weloveprint campaign.
ATG Media, a provider of outsourced magazine design and production services, has won four new clients.
Imagine Publishing has announced an exclusive split run of two amazing covers; certain to excite audiences across both the UK and US.
MusicRadar has revealed a new responsive website and the addition of Simon Arblaster and Michael Brown to the editorial team.
Since its launch in November 2014, Newssolutions – the publisher-facing team at News UK – has been sharing its vision for the sustainable future of the UK newspaper and magazine industry. In the third part of the series, Martin Maynard focuses on New
Archant Bride has launched a new-look website in support of its regional magazines and events, providing brides and grooms-to-be with inspiration, planning tools and access to the Bride wedding titles, shows and fairs.
Guitarist, Future’s leading guitar magazine, announces the appointment of David Mead as their new Deputy Editor, and unveils a fresh new look to the magazine.
Jon Wright and Steve Sibbald were unanimously elected Chairman and Deputy Chairman respectively of The Printing Charity for a third term at the Charity’s Annual General Meeting.
Rhapsody, the cross-media production agency, is to amalgamate sister company and specialist data service provider, Wyndeham Digital, within its operation.
Bad design gets noticed; good design doesn’t! On a well designed page, everything is there for a reason – space, colour, font, images; it should all hang together just so. Paul Solomons talks to Meg Carter about his approach to magazine design and ho
Sky is launching the Sky Editorial Asset Centre, a new digital asset management platform, to enable easier sharing of its enormous stock of still images for commissioned and acquired shows and movies.
The Magazine Production Company, based in Sussex, has been chosen to provide magazine production services for Advantage Media – a publisher located in Rockaway, New Jersey, US.
On 10th March, John Cunningham presented an InPublishing ‘Top Tips Webinar’, entitled ‘5 Top Tips to Maximise your Creative Assets in the Digital Age’. Here, John provides further information in response to the questions put to him in the Q&A that fo
ATG Media, a part of AT Graphics Ltd, have overhauled their corporate communications including a full website launch backed by targeted email campaigns.
News UK has today launched a new division for the company - Newssolutions. Offering the newspaper and magazine industry an “unrivalled and world-class production and distribution service”, News UK says it will also provide the opportunity for them si
