So, it has been a while since we talked about the layout of a magazine. Currently our staff is working on this years magazine layout. They have started with laying out the cover design which is a change. In the past three issues, the staff has designed the folio first and the cover became nothing more than an afterthought. I am interested to see how this approach works.
One of the techniques that I approached the students with was the use of a grid system to divide up the page. One of the most common uses of a grid is the concept of “Rule-of-Thirds”. For those of you who don’t know what this is, the “Rule-of-Thirds” is a grid that photographers use to align their subject in the image. Imagine looking through a camera. Now imagine that there is a grid that divides your viewfinder into thirds vertically and horizontally. By lining up your subject, or the majority of your subject on one of the inner four corners or the edges of the inside rectangle, you create a stronger composition.
Now take that rule-of-thirds idea and apply it to layout. By dividing the page up using a grid you force yourself to begin composing the page rather than throwing stuff on the page. The grid brings stability and strength to your layout composition. When applying this grid to a layout it does not need to be in thirds. It could be in fourths, eighths, sixteenths, etc. By dividing your pages you are giving yourself a rough template that makes the layout from page to page easier and faster.
Obviously, if you have any layout experience, you have heard of people using columns to control layout. While this allows you to divide and work with the layout horizontally it doesn’t take care of the vertical aspects of your layout. It also allows you to begin the process of designing your folio in a much broader sense. For last year’s layout we began by dividing the page into fourths and filling in blocks in different arrangements.
This forced us to think about where the written and visual information of the folio would happen in the layout. (Yes, for those of you who noticed, our layout last year involved a folio that, vertically, was almost 1/4 of the page.) By working this way we could actually start laying out the pages without having the folio design done, or even started.
Try using the grid as a way to govern your pages. It may seem, at first, that you are going to drive your design into a rut. It’s okay to think that. I think that you will find that the grid is actually quite flexible and can help your designs. See how it works for you.
