Pushing the Envelope

How far can you push the design envelope? Is it possible to have the concept of your magazine's layout go over the reader's head?
Before I go on about this topic I want to make two things perfectly clear: I tend to design on the conservative side and this topic came about because of our scores in this year's competitions. I don't want you to think that this is anything other than constructive criticism/reflection on my part.

Two and a half years ago, when I first joined Charisma, we crated Surfaces. The magazine had a fairly conservative layout. There were a few twists, but not many. The major twist was the fact that we chose to layout the magazine on 8 1/2 x 11 paper in the landscape orientation. That meant that the magazine was bound on the short side (I would not recommend this due to printing issues). The spread was divided into either four or six columns or a combination of each on a page.
Last year's magazine ! (that's right "!"), went in a completely different direction. There wasn't a spread that was similar. The only thing that tied the pages together was the folio, and the use of an exclamation point in some manner. We went from 4 color ink-jet printing on Surfaces to Duotone professional printing. The print quality was extraordinary and the magazine looked good.

The second magazine that I was involved with was hard for me to get my head around at first. It went against my philosophy of design, but I came to love it. Now that we have gotten three of our four competition results back, we have been less than thrilled.
As my colleague and I have let this sink in and we have discussed it, we are coming to the realization that the design concept for ! may have been too much. There are a lot of things that are happening from page to page and even on the page. For some this may be too hard to get their head around, and can end up overwhelming the reader. It distracts them from reading or enjoying the art.

So the moral of the story here? Take risks in your layout, but make sure that what you are doing does not overpower the content. I am by no means saying that conservative is the way to go. After last year's magazine I have begun to appreciate less conservative layout ideas. I have, however, come to appreciate that the cutting edge can be dangerous.

Developing the Theme

Thank you to Lars for the post. Let's look at the first part here.

"I'm an editor of the literary magazine at Aspen High School in Colorado. Our lit mag team has a theme (Spectrum), but we are short on ideas for layout and overall design. I'm also interested in cheaper methods of printing, having gone far over budget on our last two editions. Any advice would be greatly appreciated."
-Lars

Once the idea for a theme is there, you hit a wall. It is one of the hardest parts of the magazine. You have an idea and everywhere to go with it. It can be daunting. Our staff has actually had to go back to scratch after our first idea really wouldn't pan out. So we are at the same point that Spectrum is.

At this point you need to look at what possibilities your theme can offer you. It doesn't need to be an exhaustive list, but don't stop at the first idea. This is not the same list that I talked about before.
I am an art teacher. I drive my students crazy with thumbnail sketches. For those non-artists out there, these are very basic sketches that help to organize the artist's thoughts as they develop an idea. I tell my students all of the time that their first idea is very rarely going to be the best.
Start your list of ideas. The list can be doodles, words, what ever helps to get the ideas out on paper. Then review the list and see what ideas have the most potential. Our staff is actually doing some research to help develop an idea that we are pursuing. They are bringing their ideas back to the group at our next meeting. We will go from there.
Don't be afraid to scrap an idea that you have worked on for a while. Sometimes things get published that should have been scrapped before publishing. It's a hard thing to realize and harder thing to actually do something about.

Once you have an inkling about where to go start looking at how the layout can be tied into the theme. The ideas that you just came up with should be a guide for the design. Can your theme be reflected in a folio? Should it be part of the folio or should the folio be simple? What colors are you going to use (Spectrum really opens the color realm, but that may not be how you want to go with this.)? Sections or no sections?

Above are the things to keep in mind as you design. If you're still nervous about the idea it can't hurt to start developing things in the computer. You may stumble onto something as you begin creating.

The Theme

So the next thing that we are working on is the theme for this year's magazine. The theme is the soul of the magazine. It controls the look and feel of the magazine. In some cases it may even dictate the submissions that are put in the magazine. The theme can be as simple as a shape or graphic element or as multi-layered as surfaces. The theme should be your first decision before anything else can be done. So what goes into the theme?
When I am trying to come up with an idea I create a list of things. The staff sits around and generates a list of ideas for possible themes. It starts off really random, but the more random the better. The longer the list, the better. From that list the staff discusses and narrows down the big list to a few choices.
In theory the items that are on the small list (Hopefully four or five ideas) are expanded. What I mean is, those ideas should be developed a little. Sketch out a concept for the cover, sections (If you use them), a folio line and anything else that comes with the development discussion.
With those ideas fleshed out a little, a decision needs to be made final. It is important that the theme that is chosen will flow through the magazine. It will help to bring the pages together and create a gestalt for your magazine.

Stuck for ideas? Take a look at magazines from home. You can use these layouts as a style guide, but more importantly you can use them to give your magazine a modern edge. It also helps to communicate with other high school literary magazines. Exchange copies of your magazines. See what they are doing. Ask them how they are creating the effects and themes. It is OK to borrow ideas but not to copy them.