Table of Contents
10+ Magazine Design Templates
The access to a mechanical movable type of printing marked the age of mass communication in Renaissance Europe. The literate elite no longer monopolized learning as ideas became more revolutionary with a relatively nonrestrictive circulation of information that inspired and captivated the masses enough for them to begin challenging the status quo, threatening both politics and the system of religion.
Elements of A Good Magazine Design
Fast forward to modern-day printing and the advent of the internet, products of the print media, including magazines, seems nothing but an afterthought, a guilty pleasure or a distraction from an otherwise ordinary or busy day. However, you can’t deny the fact that they will always have that large-scale impact on our culture and society as a whole, for better or for worse. With that said, magazine designs have changed over the years, but their most crucial elements remain to be the same:
- Headline: This is perhaps the most important part of a magazine’s overall layout. The headline can be created in various sizes, however, it should be set in a size bigger than the rest of the text on the same page. If you have noticed the morning paper headline, to some extent, that’s also how a magazine’s headline should look like: meaningful, catchy and compelling enough for the audience to continue or start reading the article.
- Body/Body Text /Body Copy: In a magazine design template, you should start working on an article’s body copy, since it takes up the most space. It’s also possible that you’d run into a number of paragraphs so it’s very important that you set the margins correctly according to their rows and columns to guide the reader through because your design is nothing if the content isn’t readable. The main point is consistency. The length of the body copy should then be the same for all other articles in your magazine.
- Bylines: Your writers and contributors need to be acknowledged because aside from getting paid for what they have written, their names under the articles will serve as an accomplishment and should be treated as such by including them on the layout. If it’s a collaborative article, you can have two bylines or the team’s name.
- Pull Quotes: Quotes, paired with good images, help a lot in conveying a story to the reader before they read it. You can quote verbatim or get a small portion of the body copy. You can also choose to summarize some key points. Either way, your quotes or blurbs should be in a font different from that of the text in the body copy.
- Image Captions: Photojournalism doesn’t end with the image. Photos that are part of the layout should be captioned appropriately. Captions should be short, written in a way that complements the image without stating the obvious or getting too literal.
10+ Magazine Design Templates
Free Sports Magazine Format
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Free Architecture Magazine Sample
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Free Clothing Magazine Template
Marketing Magazine Sample
Sample Fashion Magazine Template
Sample Magazine Design
Music Magazine Design Template
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Steps to a Good Magazine Design
There are thousands of magazines that exist today because they continue to inform, inspire, educate and entertain readers around the world. Even with the luxury of getting information easily from the internet, magazines still change the nature of things throughout the world, nearly 600 years after the printing press was introduced. You have a goal and a legacy to keep and you can do that through following these basic steps:
- Pick a theme or focus: What is your magazine’s primary focus? Remember magazines are usually niche publications with a specific audience targeted. What is the focus of this month’s publication? How do you set that focus to make sure all your content are tied in? There’s a reason why we call one single publication as an “issue”.
- Decide how you’re going to create your magazine: The design strategies you use for completing your magazine can determine how you collect and incorporate content.
- Decide on a deadline: You need to set a date for finishing the magazine, however, you also have to be realistic in setting expectations for the tasks to be done and whether or not you can feasibly finish the magazine for circulation by the deadline.
- Write: For all its visual appeal, a magazine would fail to have an impact to its targeted readers without offering strong content. What do you want to say to your audience? Whether your publication is all about humor, political satire, arty fiction, latest technology, nature and travel, news reports, celebrity interviews or a combination of those genres, you’ll need well-written, textual content.
- Take pictures: A magazine is known to be a visual medium more than anything else. Even if yours is built around written content, you need to have great, high-quality images that will keep your reader’s interest and add value to the articles written and the publication as a whole.
- Design a cover: The cover is perhaps the most important part of a magazine’s branding since it is the main selling point. It should, therefore, be designed to give readers a tempting taste of everything you have in store for them inside, without giving away too much.
Tips for an Excellent Magazine Design
- Nail Your Contents Page: When your reader opens the magazine, the contents will be the first one they’re going to see and judge. All outstanding spreads for content are put together on some type of grid layout but it definitely doesn’t have to be borderline boring and downright restrictive.
- Choose Your Type: The use of typography plays a major role in your magazine’s framework. It also gives your magazine an added unique personality because typeface styles have been associated with famous magazines over the years. For instance, the New Yorker is known for two typefaces: its signature Irvin typeface for headlines, with all articles set in Adobe Caslon. Fashion magazines use serif fonts like Bodoni or Didot as their standard although more and more magazines today are going with custom-made fonts.
- Ditch the Brazen Cover: A cover that sells doesn’t need a rainbow spectrum of color and an overdone layout with too much going on that it already looks cheap. You can have powerful cover lines in simple graphic layout or an image that pops even with the use of black and white color, making it balanced, stylish and sophisticated.
Types of Magazine Layout/Designs
A magazine’s layout and design should not only be visually appealing but also readable, which means it should be easy for the audience to take in all the information available. Below are the three main types of magazine designs you can use:
- Conventional Magazine Design: This is probably the most simple design you can go with. The title is often placed in the page’s upper left corner so that the reader can see the first part of the content. This design is usually used in traditional publications in which the audience is more interested in the news articles and other information in the magazine.
- Classic Magazine Design: More popular as a medium of a publication, this isn’t too different from the conventional design except for the title which is placed in the center top of the page while the copy body is usually arranged and divided into two columns. The layout is reminiscent of the age of the tin printing machine that still exists and remains in use to this day.
- Modern Magazine Design: In contrast to designs mentioned previously, the layout for this type of design presents more images and more use of typography such as thick line elements which is known to be very useful for giving emphasis and setting focus in all types of print media.
Magazine Design Sizes
Magazine sizes can vary from these two standard sizes, so if you’re thinking of having yours printed over-sized or undersized, the cost will naturally be higher:
Standard Size: 8 3 ?8” x 10 7 ?8”
Digest Size: 5 3 ?8” x 8 3 ?8”
Magazine Design FAQs
What sizes are magazine covers?
Magazine covers come in 8.5 inches by 11.5 inches size but you need to leave some bleed area
What is a magazine layout?
A magazine or page layout is the part of graphic design that involves putting together all visual elements on a page.
How important are magazines today?
Magazines are highly-targeted, more than a source of entertainment, they provide information that a very specific audience wants to read or know.
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