Magazine Design That Works: Secrets for Successful Magazine Design (That Works Series) [Paperback]

Stacey King (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1564967581 | ISBN-13: 978-1564967589 | Publication Date: July 1, 2001

Magazine Design that Works focuses on 20 different magazines and what makes them work graphically, and how their look was conceived, designed, and executed. The projects featured range in style and scope, and examine the work of the top designers in the business from all around the world. Providing a virtual 'blueprint' for each project, comparisons of rough draft and final drafts illustrate the process, and the development of familiar magazines are traced over their lifespan.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is something any student would find useful, once they had learnt what a magazine is. -- Eye Magazine, Spring 2000

About the Author

Stacey King is a magazine writer and online editor based in Sunnyvale, California. She writes for HOW magazine and is currently an editor at TheDailyApple.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Rockport Publishers (July 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564967581
• ISBN-13: 978-1564967589
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #271,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pretty, but not technical, January 4, 2003

By 

Edward H. Pitts "Sculptor-Tinkerer" (Joseph, Oregon, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Magazine Design That Works: Secrets for Successful Magazine Design (That Works Series) (Paperback)

Anyone who is looking for a collection of beautiful magazine pages and spreads might give this 5 stars, but I was hoping that more would be delivered in fulfillment of the subtitle: "Secrets for Successful Magazine Design."

Most of the images are of opening pages/spreads of articles or departments; I noticed no complete layouts, only a few continued pages and only one page that had to accomodate fractional ads. Thus, the emphasis was on art, more than on technique.

Two pages under the title, "Eleven Steps to a Successful Redesign," were heavy on "what-to" rather than "how-to." One of the "steps" is: "Get your inside designers involved." Alright! But folks like me, who has often been able to look in the mirror and say, "Good morning editor, publisher, designer, production manager," that is a beautiful dream.

In short, if you know magazine design and want to consider the artistic approaches of others, this is a book for you. If you are new to magazine design and want to learn its "secrets," you won't discover many here.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational rather than informative, June 4, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Magazine Design That Works: Secrets for Successful Magazine Design (That Works Series) (Paperback)

I found this book to be a good place to look for inspiration and overall themes. It doesn't get too much into the nitty-gritty, hard-working pages of ads mixed with content, but it does talk about process and consistency of voice. The author lets several editors explain the design choices they made when faced with title relaunches and updates, and how those choices reinforced the type, photography, writing style, and illustrations used. There are rationale breakdowns of section headers, feature articles, grids, typography, photographic styles, etc, for several well-maintained and respected magazines.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very inspiring, January 19, 2005

By 

Alison K. Mackey "graphic designer & book addict" (Milwaukee, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Magazine Design That Works: Secrets for Successful Magazine Design (That Works Series) (Paperback)

I think a person's appreciation of this book depends on their particular field and learning style. I work as a graphic designer for a number of different hobby magazines, and my learning style is that of a sponge - I see something, I soak it up. This book was PERFECT for me. I like to page through it, soak up the ideas, immerse myself in these various styles of good design before embarking on my own projects. I have a number of design collections, but this is the best one I've seen that's magazine specific. I also found the articles interesting and to the point, but they are more of a supplement to the designs.