How to be a fashion cop; what editors need to know to protect the integrity of their magazine's design

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Annual, 1996 by Carol E. Holstead

Magazine design is the manner in which a magazine dresses - or perhaps undresses - its ideas. It is the art director's responsibility to figure out whether a story needs a bow tie or a boa, and it's the magazine editor who needs to play the role of fashion cop - especially in an age when technological gadgetry can lead to excess, even grunge.

Unfortunately, the job of protecting the integrity of a magazines design is one that many editors are reluctant to take on, largely because they feel ill equipped to do so. But playing fashion cop doesn't mean you have to be able to design your magazine; it just means you have to understand the process and purpose of design well enough to know when to say when. it also means hiring the right art director or graphic designer, collaborating on ideas and asking questions as your magazine's design evolves.

Two categories of designers

Magazine designers fall into two basic categories: those who understand that the purpose of magazine design is to solve a communication problem and those who believe that it's about performing their art. This distinction is important for editors to understand because in the hands of the second category of designers, the computer can be a means of causing communication problems instead of solving them.

When you're shopping around for an art director, look for someone who has experience, or training at least, in publication design. Ideally, this experience should extend to magazines and not just one-shot publications such as annual reports. Designers with magazine training are more likely to recognize the need for continuity, that each issue of a magazine is just one movement in an ongoing symphony.

Look for portfolio work that demonstrates an ability to combine art, type, and space in a way that leads a reader into a story and onto the continuing pages. If you can't tell where a story begins, or if a design doesn't appear to carry from one spread to the next - if the story doesn't look like a package - there's a problem. Also look for designs that seem to mirror the text, the ideas expressed in a story. if you see elements that seem to serve littie purpose, other than decoration (color, borders, line art, photos, unnecessary repetition of art or type, for example), ask the designer why he or she used them. If the answer is "Because they look good," move on.

Ideally, any designer you hire should know how to build a mechanical by hand, even if he or she win actually be creating magazine pages on the computer. Designers who know how to cut and paste, how to build overlays for spot color, and how to kern type by hand have a stronger sense of the limitations that are necessary to effective design.

Think first, design later

In addition, you should look for a designer whose work shows a willingness to take risks, whose work shows imagination and even a sense of humor. Most important, seek a designer who appears to think first and design later.

At its best, design is a collaborative process between a magazine designer and editor. This doesn't mean that it's the editor's job to decide what typefaces or art to use or where elements should be placed on a page. But an editor should ensure that the exchange of ideas inspires effective design.

Intelligent design starts with an idea that grows out of a designer's introspection about a story. This means that a designer needs to read a manuscript - the sooner the better - and talk to an editor about what the story is trying to communicate. This will enable the designer to envision more clearly the art, type, and other graphic elements that will convey the story's message.

After discussing the story, your designer should sketch ideas for it, refining these ideas along the way. These sketches provide a blueprint that allows both the editor and the designer to get a sense of what the finished product will look like. After a designer has revised the blueprint, he or she can build it into the computer.

This developmental process might seem an obvious way to go about designing a magazine, but it isn't obvious to all designers. The ease of working on a computer tempts some people to take shortcuts, to experiment randomly until a layout evolves. Done this way, successfull design becomes more a product of luck than of the intellectual process necessary to good design. It can also lead to decorative pages, ones that feature excessive ornament. Indeed, because of its capabilities, the computer often seduces people into overdesigning pages.

Editorial feedback

Just as most writers can't objectively evaluate their own work, neither can designers. Consequently, an editor's input is important not just at the beginning of the design process but throughout it. This is especially true at small magazines where the design is probably farmed out to a freelancer or handled by a lone designer working without the supervision of an art director.

After the designer has created rough layouts in the computer, the editor needs to look at them and provide some feedback. At first you may find it somewhat difficult to articulate why you do like or don't like a particular design, but it will get much easier with practice.