What is publication design?
Publication design is the process of designing layouts for magazines, newspapers, books, and other types of publications.
“Graphic designers that specialize in publications work with editors and publishers to create layouts with carefully selected typography and accompanying artwork, which includes photography, graphics and illustrations.”
Good publication design can make your content easy to read and attractive to look at. Publication design can inform and instruct an audience through the combination of words, graphics, and layout.
Publication designer
Publication design refers to the process of creating and designing layouts for things like newspapers, magazines, books, and the online equivalent to those. It includes elements like images, typography, and designers consider things like size and color to make publications attractive, eye-catching, and easy to take in.
Types of publication design
Publication design can encompass a wide range of formats, from single-page newsletters to multi-page magazines. Some common types of publication design include:
· Online newsletters.
· Online magazines.
· E-Books.
· Blogs.
· Digital reports.
· Digital catalogs.
· Digital brochures.
• Design inspiration: magazine
• Web design publications
Design Inspiration: Magazine
Publication design is used across all different types of publications and even then, the content has to be specific to a subject or genre. For layout inspiration, take a look at Bearings Magazine. The design needs to express the theme of the magazine. This may cause you to prioritize which products you are going to publish your work on .Here’s a digital publishing checklist, provided by Magazine Designing that you can use to work through the relatively new world of digital publication design
Design: Web Design for Publications
Publication design is also seen on digital platforms like blogs, online magazines. They are also the most important inherent features of a website. These include accessibility, compatibility, navigability, readability and usability.
Publication Design Tips;’
You want your product to look visually pleasing while communicating the most important information to your consumers. Well, we have compiled some of the best design ideas.
Fonts
Different font styles elicit different feelings or reactions from the viewers. This is because the style of typeface you choose to use in your designs can change the tone of the design altogether. This concept is called font psychology. Pick a font that is legible for the bulk of your text. This means no scripts! Try a font like Arial that has some mild variations that you can use like Bold, Black, and Italic for your headers or titles. Additionally, choose a font that will be your eye-catching font.
Images
Choose images and graphics that are going to be consistent with the theme of your project. Images are often used to illustrate magazine articles. The choice of image can help the writer to influence the reader's opinion. The writing or caption below the image can influence our response to the image and the article that it illustrates.
· The recommended DPI that you will need for printing is at least 300 DPI. Typically, images that are downloaded off of the internet, sent via email, or taken on your phone will not be at a high enough DPI to print clearly.
· If you are planning to use graphics, try to use a vector graphic. This will allow your graphic to be scalable, which in turn maintains your graphics clarity. If you have found a graphic that you love, but it’s a raster graphic, make sure that you adhere to the 300 DPI rule that we outlined above.
White Space
White space is the area between design elements. It is also the space within individual design elements, including the space between typography glyphs (readable characters). It can be any color, texture, pattern, or even a background image. White space can be a very useful tool, when used correctly.
Colors
Choose a color palette for your project and stick to it! Having an established color pallet will force you to stay within your theme and make it easy for you to create a cohesive looking project .Color schemes are often used to place emphasis on particular aspects of a design or to evoke a desired mood or emotion in the viewer. Designers use color selectively to create harmony, balance, and consistency.
When printing, be sure that you are designing your project to be in CMYK instead of RGB. RGB is typically used for digital projects, while CMYK is used for print projects. Be sure you set this up at the beginning of your project so you don’t have to re-do any of your colors at the end. For more information on the difference between CMYK and RGB.
Body Copy
When creating a publication printing project, changes are your project is going to include some text, so it’s important to get it right. Make sure that the height between two lines of text (also known as leading) is large enough that there is some breathing room.
In newspapers and magazines, body copy (q.v.) is the main article or text that writers are responsible for, in contrast with display copy, accompanying material such as headlines and captions, which are usually written by copy editors or sub-editors.
Navigation
Make sure that your project is easy for your readers and customers to navigate. This means including a table of contents, page numbers, and chapter/ section titles. This will help your audience to be able to find information that they are looking for quickly.
Publication Design for Mailing
If you are looking to create a product that you are going to have mailed directly to your customers, you are going to have to make certain concessions in your design to make room for the addresses and stamps. PrintingCenterUSA offers mailing services for a number of products like postcards, magazines, catalogs, and more! Our ailing services include Mailing Lists: CASS Certification, Move Update, Remove Duplicates Inkjet Addresses, Tabbing if required, and Delivery to post office. If you are looking to print a product with mailing services,download one of free online templatesthat has the title ‘Mailing Version’. This will include a blocked off section for your address and stamp.
Publication Design Specifications
If you are looking to print a publication with PrintingCenter, you have come to the right place! We offer many levels of customization so that you are sure to have a product that you and your customers are happy with!
Size
We have a wide variety of sizes in Portrait, Landscape, and Square mode. All of the following sizes are in inches.
For Portrait, we offer:
- 25 x 11
- 5 x 8.5
- 5 x 11
- 6 x 9
- A4 (8.27 x 11.69)
- A5 (5.83 x 8.27)
- A6 (4.12 x 5.83)
For Landscape orientation we offer:
- 11 x 8.5
- 5 x 5.5
- 9 x 6
For Square products, we offer:
- 6 x 6
- 8 x 8
- 12 x 12
And if that wasn’t enough, we also offer a custom size option! Just find the custom size button under our size drop down and enter your width and height. If the pricing tool gives you a quote, then we can print that size!
Cover Finish
We offer two different cover finishes for your publications: UV coating and soft touch lamination. You can also choose no coating, but that’s no fun. UV coating is a protective coating that can protect your project from scratching and scuffing caused by transport and frequent handling. It also gives your project a shiny gloss coating to make your photos and colors pop, as well as providing a truly professional look and feel. Soft Touch Lamination is a lamination technique that adds a velvety-smooth finish to the cover of your product.
Ink
When printing with Printing Center, you can choose from the following ink color options for your cover:
- 4/4 Full color on the front and full color on the back
- 4/1 Full color on the front and black on the back
- 4/0 Full color on the front and no printing on the back
- 1/1Black on the front and back
For your inside pages, you can only choose 4/4 or 1/1.
Publication design jobs
Publication designers usually work as part of a team that creates the entire publication. They may be responsible for laying out the pages, designing graphics and illustrations, and ensuring the design meets all standards for printing or publishing online. Publication designers often work closely with editors, writers, photographers, and other members of the design team to create an attractive and easy-to-read product.
Conclusion
Publication design is an important part of the publishing process. If you want to make your content easy to read and attractive, it’s best if you use a talented designer when designing layouts for magazines, newspapers, books, or any other type of publication.
If you want to try working with designers from around the world, consider using a freelancer site like Upwork or Fiverr.