Magazine Layout

Introduction

The layout of the average magazine article is fairly standard and not hard to understand.  Terminology can vary but don’t be put off by this.

Terminology

  • Layout – the way the elements of a magazine article are arranged on the page.
  • Headline – the title of the article usually in large format.
  • Subhead – expands on the title, also in large font but not as large as the title.
  • Bylines – states who created the article.
  • Introductory paragraph – the first paragraph of an article which is often in bold, it tends to give a summary of the article to follow.
  • Callouts or pull quotes – sentences or phrases extracted from the text and repeated in the text in larger and/or differnent font, used when space needs to be filled.
  • Columns – magazine articles are arranged in columns, two or three column layouts seem to be the most common.  The column elements are most obvious with the text.
  • Justification – the alingment of margins of the text, left, right or full (full means that margins on both side of the column will be straight).
  • Cut lines (captions) – labels for your pictures, advisably a point smaller than your regular text.
  • Text wrapping – literally wrapping text around pictures. Text should never sit right up against a picture but there should be a consistent distance between text and graphics.

Examples

Links

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