Editorial Design · Page 1 of 7

Consistency & variety

A magazine has to feel like one publication from cover to colophon, yet every spread needs to be interesting enough to keep readers turning pages. The grid is how designers do both. Use this lesson as your reference for the brochure, the InDesign exercises and the Pulse magazine.

Consistency & variety

Readers learn a magazine’s system quickly: where to find the page number, what a headline looks like, how a caption reads. That consistency builds trust and makes the content easy to navigate. Variety keeps them interested.

Consistency (the constants)

The same grid, margins and baseline
The same typefaces and paragraph styles
A limited color palette
Folios and running heads in the same place
One image treatment (crops, corners, borders)

Variety (the variables)

Image size, cropping and position
How many columns the text spans
Where the pull quote or color block sits
The amount of white space
Scale contrast: one huge element, several small

Two spreads from one magazine. Teal marks the constants: the same margins, folios and kicker. Pink dashes mark the variables: the photo changes size and position, and the pull quote moves.

The rule of thumb: keep the system, change the layout. Every choice on the right is made within the choices on the left.

Parts of a magazine

Magazines follow a familiar order, so readers always know where they are.

A flatplan: every page of the issue in order, grouped by part. Designers plan the whole issue this way before designing any spread.

Part	What it is	Design notes
Cover	The front page: masthead (title), issue and date, main image	Usually no folio. Make it bold and simple.
Title page	Opens the issue inside the cover	Echoes the cover and sets the visual tone.
Table of contents	Lists titles (and authors) with page numbers	One of the most-read pages. Make it scannable.
Front of book	Short, regular pieces (departments, letters)	Tighter, busier layouts with more items per page.
Feature well	The main stories, poems and essays	More white space, bigger images, dramatic openers.
Colophon	Credits: who made it, typefaces, publisher	Small and quiet. Pulse requires one.

Apply it: Pulse magazine

Pulse is a literary magazine, so most of it is a feature well of poems and stories. Your storyboard must include the title page, table of contents and colophon in the page count, and the total must be divisible by 4.