[Kat27Bro]

Hi there,
I was wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction at all. I am in the process of setting up a new advertising business, and each month we will publish a magazine.

What I need to do is learn the basics so I can design the front cover, but most importantly I need to learn about page layout so that I can arrange the adverts etc that will go into the magazine.

I have no experience at all. Is it possible for me to learn about this in a short space of time?

Any feedback will be much appreciated.

Thanks

Katie

[Boss Hog]

Hi Katie

It is possible to learn the basics but what I suspect...is that you don't have the software, you will ideally need Adobe InDesign or Quark, do you happen to have either?

[Steve]

What type of magazine will it be and roughly how many pages?

I work for Aberdeen Journals who publish papers up here in Scotland (Press and Journal, Evening Express, Aberdeen Citizen and Scot Ads). I'm currently learning how to put together the Scot Ads which is a classified adverts paper and we use Media Planner to do this which is a drag and drop system where all ads are in a database and we drag them onto layout pages to lay them out.

But for your purposes I would probably say you want to be looking at Adobe Indesign (We use this for creating the ads in the papers).

Its an easy programme to pick up although I have knowledge of other Adobe packages and features are similar.

The weekend past I was actually messing around with Indesign to create some work for my portfolio and made 2 pages of a fictional magazine. Its a simple layout but I'm going to experiment with it further.

Maybe start looking for tutorials on Indesign and have a practice. Have you used any Adobe packages?

My quick Mag layout:

[Kat27Bro]

No, I don't have either, but I was aware that I would need some software. Do you think it will be simple enough for a complete beginner like myself? I am a very keen and willing learner, and as it will be for the benefit of my own business, I will put a lot of time and effort into it.
Thanks.

[Steve]

I would say so - maybe get a book or something on it, one with a few good examples of the basics to get you started. I use Indesign basically everyday due to work making adverts. I'd never used it till I started there back in July and love it now.

[Boss Hog]

I don't see why not, anything is possible if you work hard at it, you can download a free 30 day trial of Indesign, have a look for some tutorials online and have a play with it.

A quick google for "indesign tutorials"....

InDesign Tutorial 0001 - Basic Page Setup

Free Adobe InDesign Tutorials | Layers Magazine

Beginners Adobe InDesign CS Tutorial with useful tips for InDesign CS

If you have any further questions just ask.

[Pete]

Hi Katie

Vectortuts did an inDesign tutorial the other week, "Designing a magazine cover". It's very basic but a great place to start.

How to Create a Music Magazine Cover in InDesign - VECTORTUTS

Pete

[Steve]

Boss Hogs second link is the site I used to get basics for the bit of work I did above.

The tutorial has 3 parts, this is part 1:

Adobe InDesign Tutorial | Master Pages | Auto Page Numbers | Layers Magazine

[Kat27Bro]

Thanks for the advice, can you advise me where I would find Media Planner that sounds very useful for me. I will definately have a look into getting the software, it sounds like just what I need.
Thanks

[Steve]

I think for magazine purposes you would be better with Indesign. I'm not sure where you would get Media Planner from but I do know that we are getting new software soon to replace this to make our lives easier so it is probably a little dated now.