Help needed!! Magazine design and page layout

K

Kat27Bro

New Member
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
 
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:

indesign_001.jpg
 
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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.
 
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
Hi Katie,

Great news that your looking at starting up in business doing this. Its a tough business but very rewarding. I've been involved in advertising/design and media, online and print for over ten years. I've worked on national magazines, newspapers and major websites. Currently I run a successful design and print business based in the Midlands

If you do get stuck or need any help with the programs, print or come across any problems, please mail me. If I can't help you, one of my designers will be able to I'm sure. :)

Goodluck!!!
 
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