Magazine designer
We design magazines for a wide range of sectors.
Looking for magazine designers? Get a quote for your project.Whether you have a large or small readership, applying creative and stylish designs to your magazine layouts helps captivate your audience, keeps things exciting and engages your readers.
Toast’s graphic designers have worked on all types of magazines, helping to increase readership and advertising revenue. We work with small and large organisations, helping to modernise and inject some style into publications.
Make the most of your magazine!
Planning and putting together a magazine is a large task, so the last thing you need is to be let down on the creative.
Our experience in designing publications helps the editors and editorial teams we work with ensure the project’s design stage goes smoothly.
We’ll work with you across every stage of the project – from initial flat plans to collating copy and images – our graphic design team has the experience you need to create incredible creative and fully understand the magazine design process.
Project Management.
There are two main ways that magazine projects generally progress. The first is where our clients collate everything for the publication and then supply it all in one go. The second is where content comes over as and when it’s ready.
We’re happy to work either way on magazine design projects. Still, communication is critical, so we use Basecamp to manage our magazine projects as it acts as a repository for all content, and we can set to-do lists, deadlines and schedules.
As the print deadline approaches, there are always a few articles to chase and overdue advert artwork; making use of Basecamps messages and, most importantly, the to-do items means that everyone involved in the project knows exactly where everything is.
Awesome creative & art direction.
Having a trusted process is one thing, but if your magazine lacks a professional graphic design, it won’t be in print for long.
Our designers can work on a per-spread basis, designing each article as the content comes over, or we can help you to plan the look and feel of your magazine design before the first issue.
Creating a style guide specifically for your publication creates a clear guide to the layout – from grids to colours and fonts.
Suppose your business has an existing visual identity guide. In that case, we can work with that, too, ensuring everything is on brand and works with the rest of your marketing and promotional collateral.
Experience.
We’re well versed in managing the creative aspects of a magazine project effectively as it moves through the design, layout, proofing and amends stages.
Magazine design projects can be unique as the page plan can change as the project progresses, with articles reduced or extended and additional adverts that need to be accommodated.
Every magazine project is unique, and editors usually have their preferred method of working, so we are flexible in how we work with clients.
Technical.
Every magazine we design and put together is done in Adobe InDesign, and we do things properly.
Heading, paragraph and character styles are used to manage the design, and table styles are used to manage the layout.
We also extensively use grids and develop layout styles for each publication we work on. These grids ensure a consistent layout across the entire magazine, meaning the design work is carried through over subsequent issues.
All artwork is supplied press-ready in the correct format for your output, whether print or digital.
Magazine design FAQs.
Designing a magazine is not the same as everyday graphic design.
It requires more project management, a high-level understanding of Adobe InDesign and a process that works for you.
Below are some answers to common questions we get about designing magazines.
If you’d like to talk about your specific requirements:
What experience do our magazine designers have?
We’ve worked on many magazines, including staff publications, membership magazines and commercial projects.
From 48pp to over 120pp in size, we have experience in working on smaller and larger projects.
What design software do our magazine designers use?
Everything is done in Adobe InDesign, the industry standard for page layout.
All our projects are technically proficient, using styles, grids and templates within InDesign to ensure that the first and subsequent publications are spot-on.
Can we create custom illustrations, graphics and infographics?
Yes, we do this as-standard for the projects that we work on, but items like these are usually quoted separately as they can take time to produce and get right for your publication.
What is the typical turnaround time?
Every magazine is different, so there’s no easy answer to this question.
Planning in advance and giving us notice on when the project needs to go to press means we can plan this efficiently.
What’s the revision process?
We share initial designs and layouts for comment via Adobe Share so you can mark up comments for us to action.
Some clients prefer a hard copy to mark up, and others use Adobe Acrobat to send comments digitally.
We have experience in all of these, so it’s a case of whatever works best for you!
Will the artwork be press-ready?
Prepping a document for artwork is a crucial stage of the project.
We can work directly with your printer or commission our own to ensure that all the files are art worked correctly for the final production, whether a physical print or a digital version.
Do we do digital magazines?
Yes. These are becoming more prevalent, and we can create an interactive PDF or hosted interactive version of your magazine if printing is not an option for you.
Every project we work on is designed to be press-ready, so if you do decide to print the magazine, it’s all ready to go.
Do we artwork adverts for your publication?
We can, but what’s better is to educate your advertisers about the format you require adverts to be delivered.
For some clients, we also offer an advert design service to create adverts for inclusion in your publication.
Do we proofread and edit copy?
We have an in-house copywriter that can help with writing, editing and proofreading the content of your magazine.
If you’d like us to research and write articles, we can help.
Proofing the copy is part of the project, so we’ll give this a full once-over before producing the final artwork.
The different types of magazine design projects we work on.
Our magazine designers work on a range of projects, including B2C magazines, periodicals and newsletters.
Our workflow and approach to your project will largely depend on the frequency of the publication and the number of pages involved.
Membership Magazines.
We design a wide range of membership magazines, ranging from smaller <50pp projects to larger 100pp+ projects.
Newsletter design.
We also work with various charities to produce monthly and quarterly newsletters in a magazine format.
Periodical Design,
Our designer team also creates periodicals for clients that are more text and data-based in content.
