Magazine vs newspaper design

[Mark Coughlan]

I've worked in newspaper layout and design to a decent extent but now wish to move into magazine design. The problem is I've developed habits from newspaper that I cant seem to rid my self of. I tend to cram text on pages instead of using empty space as much as most magazines seem to.

Is there any rules of thumb people have when it comes to designing the visuals for magazines in comparison to newspapers?

[Christian Ricardo Lubis]

i've worked a lot on magazine design for the last 5 years, and it all comes down to the point that magazine design provides more space for creativity, meaning that it gives room for new design to came up inline with the content that is presenting. not much rule of thumb besides that you can play more and you should play more, either in layout and space concern.interactivity also become one of the elements that i've dugg recently on magazine design, where he reader is engage by a design that is interactive in a way, either trough kinetics visuals, or optic visuals. this has help me a lot on finding new grounds to explore.

[Alyssa Mitchell]

Learn illustrator then you can create your own graphics.

[Mark Coughlan]

^ you got any recommendations on books or online tutorials to teach illustrator?

I'm using Quark, not sure how compatible illustrator would be with Illustrator?

[Jason McGregor]

I've worked mostly with newspaper design, but when I worked for an entertainment newspaper tab a couple years ago, I spent some time looking into magazine design. I looked through a book called "Magazine Design That Works." It turned out to be a little dated. I think it was published around 2000 or 2001 and there are probably better, more relevant magazine design resources out there, but the basics in this book were useful.

A lot of the layouts incorporate the basics of good newspaper feature design, but there were some differences. Magazines tend to use a three column grid. Some magazines also use a horizontal grid to essentially create a 9 box grid. Some designers follow this grid very closely and take it in to consideration in all aspects of page design, including photo composition.

I also think, in general, magazines pay closer attention to color. Certainly the paper quality and print capabilities allow for greater use of color, but it seems like the color palette extends beyond the typical graphical elements found in a newspaper and into the photos. I suppose that's a bit of a generalization and some more sophisticated newspapers do this as well, but overall I think color plays a more important role in magazine design.

So, for what its worth, those are a couple difference I noticed. I don't work for a traditional magazine. I work for Crain's Chicago Business as the graphics editor and I think our publication is somewhere between a newspaper and magazine. We consider ourselves a newspaper and our design generally reflects that, but we print on glossy paper and we have some opportunities for a magazine approach to design, especially in our "Focus" section. But, even if you don't make the transition from newspaper to magazine design, I found studying how magazines approach design to be beneficial.

[Evan Hill]

IMHO you don't need a book to learn Illustrator (which will help inform your newspaper design as well).
Just start with mastering the pen tool and then experiment from there. There are tons of great illustrator tutorials out there on the web.
Also, imitation is a great way to learn a new skill. Look through magazines for things that inspire you and try to replicate the technique used.

[Neil Mulka]

The map-making tutorial is brilliant.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/02/05/illustrator-tutorials-be...

[Casey Rogers]

Veerle's Blog is a great source for illustrator tutorials, and she gets into CSS/XHTML stuff too. http://veerle.duoh.com/

GoMedazine is a pretty good blog by the people at GoMedia who sell Stock Vector Art. They have some good tutorials for creating vector images and such http://www.gomediazine.com/

And there's also http://vectortuts.com/

Now none of those especially apply to magazine design, but they are helpful Illustrator resources if you want to learn the program.

[Alyssa Mitchell]

You can also go to the Adobe website for tutorials but if you've dead set on having a hard copy I learned off Quickstart (I think, its got a rabbit as a logo) or Dummies book would be good. Niether are real expensive. I don't know how effective Quark would be with illustrator but then again I'm no tech. The workflow between the Adobe Creative Suites are well worth the investment if you have the budget.

[Chris Lee]

Really, there isn't much difference between the two. If you have developed good design habits, based on sound fundamentals, then you should be able to make the transition to any medium there is. Once you understand the purpose and limitations of the medium you are working on, you adjust how you work.

A good place to start: Take a look at some more newsy magazines (Time being my personal favorite) and see how they play a story. Think about their purpose and limitations -- it should come easy after that.

Oh, also, check out GOLF magazine if you have the opportunity. Their design is great and it often has pages that look newspaper-like.

[Sketchee]

I think this is a good idea. I'd also suggest looking away from the things you are comfortable with however. Look at more design and fashion oriented magazines. A lot of these push very far into the artistic territory. Still, space, breathing room and simplicity are all important. I'd suggest looking at basic design principles.

I work in magazines three days a week and a weekly newspaper for two days a week. I find the newspaper rules much harder to follow myself. Even at the most creative it call all end up looking the same: like a newspaper

[Alyssa Mitchell]

Agreed. There isn't enough pages in our paper to hold the creative ideas I have for our newspaper and magazine so in the end it mostly looks the same week after week.