Ask yourself: Will this be a standalone publication or one in a series? If it’s part of a series, what’s your larger theme? Try to draw the title of your magazine out of this overarching theme. Note that most magazines have one- or two-word titles (such as TIME, National Geographic, Seventeen, Rolling Stone, and Forbes). Not only can a short title sum up your theme nicely, it’s also easier to deal with from a design standpoint. What’s the focus of this one publication? How can you use it to tie all your content together? (It’s not for nothing that a single publication of a magazine is called an “issue. ”) A good example of themed issues are the prom editions of teen magazines, or the Swimsuit Issue of Sports Illustrated. All of the content inside that issue ties back to the primary focus. What’s the title of this issue? If necessary, what’s the title of the entire series? Annual examples of titling an issue include the Swimsuit Issue of Sports Illustrated, the Hollywood Issue of Vanity Fair, and the September Issue of Vogue.
Though the glossy, software-enhanced look is a magazine standard, making one without the use of computers can give your magazine an art-house feel. However, this will require lots of extra time and talent and is best suited for people who have already done similar projects. InDesign is the standard (though expensive) designer tool for digitally-designed magazines. The type is often written out and edited in InCopy, which meshes with InDesign. Alternately, some publications use Quark. If these options aren’t in your price range, Office Publisher might be an effective alternative.
A deadline is more important if you’re dealing with topical issues (such as news or humor), or if you’re building the issue around an annual event (such as fall fashion).
Write articles about topics you or your collaborators care about. Do they tackle humanitarian issues? Are they related to current events? Do they offer advice or interview interesting people? Write short stories to give your magazine a more personal touch. These can be fiction or nonfiction depending on how they relate to your topic. Dig up old poems, or ask friends if you can publish their work in your magazine. These would give a magazine an artistic flair. Collaborating with friends to get different perspectives would be a great way to approach this aspect of the magazine.
Take photographs that relate to your content. Be sure to include photos with empty, neutral spaces; these make great backgrounds over which to place written content. Make a photojournalism project. This means exploring one topic in-depth and guiding the reader along with a series of photos. This is a good option for people with strong photography skills. Search for images licensed with the Creative Commons license online. While all of these photos will be free, be sure to read up on whether or not you need to attribute the photo, have permission to alter the photo, or can only use the photo for noncommercial purposes. Purchase stock images from a stock photography database. While this is a slightly more expensive route, stock photos are taken with exactly this kind of project in mind, making it easy for you to find images that correspond with your content. Draw your own pictures, or join forces with someone who does. This is recommended for an art-house-style magazine.
Make sure your magazine’s title is prominent. Though many magazines will change the color of their title from issue to issue, the font is almost always the same. Settle on one that’s easy to read, recognizable, and has an aesthetic that matches your content. Most magazines put this at the top of the cover, in order to make the brand prominent. For some interesting examples of how you can play with the interplay between the title and what’s on your cover, look up cover images for Harper’s Bazaar. Decide what’s going to be on the cover for this issue. Fashion magazines often use cover models, while gossip magazines use paparazzi or staged photos, and news magazines might use portraits. Whatever image you use, it should look compelling and be connected to your magazine’s main story. Write blurbs (optional). Some magazines will only write a blurb or a title for the main story (such as TIME or Newsweek), while others will tease several stories on the cover (such as Cosmopolitan or People. ) If you choose the second option, try to make sure your cover doesn’t start to look cluttered.
The font: Are you using fonts inside the magazine that are easy to read and fit with your theme? Do they call back to the font you used for your magazine’s title, on the cover? The paper: Are you going to print your magazine on glossy or matte paper? The color: Some magazines, such as People, used to be half color, half black and white to save on ink costs. Many literary magazines are printed in black and white, though most mainstream titles have moved to color. Consider what you can afford to spend on ink per issue, and how you can incorporate that into your magazine’s look and feel.
Usually the table of contents goes first. If your magazine has many ads, there can be several pages of them before the table of contents. A colophon follows the table of contents. The colophon should list the title, the volume and issue of the magazine (both will be 1 if this is the first), the place of publication, and the personnel who worked on it (such as editors, writers and photographers). Order your articles so that the main piece is somewhere in the middle, or even toward the back. Consider doing a whimsical “back page”. Many magazines, such as TIME or Vanity Fair use the last page of the magazine for fun, skimmable content, such as an engaging infographic or a silly interview.
Keep your formatting consistent. Use the same borders, styles, numbering, and font or fonts throughout; the last thing you want is to create a Frankenzine that looks patched together by twelve different people. Number your pages, especially if you’ve provided a table of contents. Make sure your final product is even-numbered (counting the cover). If you try to make an odd-numbered magazine, you’ll have at least one blank page. If you’re making your magazine by hand, now is the time to figure out how you’ll transfer your content to the page. Will you print it out? Write it directly onto the pages? Paste on photos?
Bind your magazine (handmade only). When your pages are finished, you can bind the magazine so it will stay together. Consider some of the steps in Make a Homemade Book.
