It all starts with the editorial content. What are the stories that will immerse the audience in the subject matter? This factor is especially important for member-based publications. The good news is you have the audience—now you just have to inform them, engage them, and tell them things they don’t already know.

If the editorial content is engaging, it is important that the visuals are as well. This means art-directing photographers to capture the meaning behind an article, whether it is through a portrait shoot or a photo essay. Take time to research and find imagery that is unexpected and spectacular. Work with illustrators to create images that add a layer to the story.

Great design grows from good content—when the designer truly connects with the edit to bring meaning to the surface. It is this synergy that ultimately engages the reader and will bring attention to your publication—including awards.

But it doesn’t end there. The quality of the final product is what makes a print publication unique. It is important that paper stock and printing are not short-changed. If the budget is an issue, the “less is more” approach should be used—less pages, more quality.

Web Address as Brand.
It goes without saying that your web address is part of your overall brand. The challenge of using some blogging systems is that your web address might have another brand embedded within it. If your publication’s title is “Magazine Monthly” and you’re using Google-owned blogspot, the web address would be magazinemonthly.blogspot.com. The better option, if you have available resources, would be to not only purchase the domain name of magazinemonthly.com but variations that might be used by your audience. Some variations might be magmonthly.com, magazinemonth.com, and magazine-monthly.com. For the really adventurous brands, try www.domai.nr, where you can find alternative domains, such as magazinemonth.ly or magazi.ne/monthly (monthly would be a subfolder).

Customize the Design.
There are hundreds of templates built using blogging software that can be further customized to visually relate to your print publication (if you have one). You may not get exactly what you want, but if you can let go of some of the details, you can get close. The key to using existing templates is the grid. Just as you would start by defining a grid system for your print publication, you need a strong, flexible grid in web design. Find a template with a good grid and let your web consultant apply your visual identity as best he can.

Maintaining It.
Many smaller publications cannot afford to build out a customized content management system (CMS). Blogging software comes with an easy-to-use CMS built in. It will take some time to learn the interface of the system, but for the most part they are WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) applications. Everybody’s favorite commands of copy and paste will work to get your text into the text editor. Uploading photos and videos is usually just a couple of extra clicks of the mouse. Many of the systems also allow you to customize access for the many people who maintain the website: For example, administrators who manage the site can access the entire CMS; editors are able to access articles and accept or decline comments; and contributors can post articles.

Examples.
WordPress: Go to wordpress.com to get your free (mydomain.wordpress.com) WordPress blog, or visit wordpress.org to download the system and apply it to your own domain name.

Typepad: Created by Six Apart, which also developed Movabletype, Typepad is a blogging and social networking development platform.

Blogger: Google owns this blogging platform. Strangely, when you create a blog, it’s not myblog.blogger.com, it’s myblog.blogspot.com.

Wicked Tasty Harvest: This is our latest redesign of a blogging template; it is built on the Typepad system. Check it out at www.wickedtastyharvest.com.

Take time to conceptualize visuals. Brainstorm beyond your first idea. Think about different ways that visuals could enhance the material: For illustrations, what style would be suitable? If you’re using photography, would color be better, or black and white? Would incorporating infographics be appropriate? Uncover the theme of the material and develop ideas that will bring the core message to the surface.

Brainstorm with your team. Discuss the goals of the piece. What is the message, and how can that message be conveyed visually? Be willing to share ideas, even ones that might not come to fruition—one person’s initial thought can evolve into a well-developed concept. It can be tempting to try to come up with a final solution quickly, but it is important to remain open to ideas at this stage.

Begin the creation of imagery. If you are used to working with stock photos, creating the imagery can be a nerve-wracking process. You are now responsible for developing the perfect image, not retrofitting an existing one. You have to find the right artist to visualize your message and communicate it clearly. You don’t want to stifle the artist’s creativity, but you also want to make sure that he or she understands the editorial direction. Most illustrators share sketches, and this allows for a checkpoint on direction. But unlike stock, you can’t alter what you get in the end, so the direction needs to be clear.

Don’t forget the editorial. The collaborative process of creating imagery means that multiple creative people are bringing their talents to the project. Be open to direction and look at strengthening the piece by fine-tuning the editorial after the final imagery is delivered. It is that last touch that can take a piece to the next level.

PDF The PDF is certainly the veteran of the digital publications. It’s a low-tech solution for the organization with limited resources. A PDF can be made in-house easily and cost-effectively. There is potential for the addition of multimedia and linking, though clients selecting the PDF as their digital solution are usually trying to reduce their budget, not increase it—not to mention that the addition of interactivity can increase the file size significantly. The PDF is a quick solution for the publisher with limited resources who is trying to maintain a print look and feel with their digital publication.

Flip-Book The next step up, so to speak, is the flip-book solution, which is offered by companies like Texterity, Zinio, or Qmags. This format simulates the experience of reading a magazine, with buttons, flipping pages, and sometimes the sound of moving pages. The pitch for this solution seems to be solely directed at advertisers. The editorial (the actual product) seems to be an afterthought. But if you are going to allocate the resources to create this digital version, why not rethink the editorial content? Make graphs interactive, drop in slide shows, include additional content through links, and design for a single page-viewing as opposed to a horizontal spread format. If you want to maintain control over the content and distribution of your publication but need a portable, digital version, this may be the solution for you.

Blog When you are ready to let go of simulating a print experience in the digital world, there is the blog solution. Yes, you might lose the large-scale, high-quality images and finishing techniques, like die-cuts and gatefolds. But what you gain in the blog format is the ability to share content, mainly through the technology of RSS (Really Simple Syndication). The benefit of RSS is that it’s widely used by blogging platforms (Wordpress, Blooger), video- and photo-sharing websites (YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo), and social media (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed) to deliver information. Your publication can connect to these communities, where your audience is most likely already sharing with friends and colleagues.

By looking at a blog solution, you are opening up options for you and your audience. A web-based publication built on a blogging platform allows your audience to build a community around its content, provides instant reader feedback for you, and connects you with your audience. If you have a publication wrapped around a community, then this solution is the one for you.

In order to make an educated choice for your digital delivery, you need to analyze your readership and understand how they interact with your publication. Where do they read your publication? Do they need a portable digital solution? How are they using your website? Do they always have an internet connection? Move out of the mindset of thinking print vs. interactive and review your overall budget. By looking at the big picture, you can make strategic decisions about where funds are best allocated for your digital presence.

1. Design and Edit. There is nothing as powerful as a layout that has a well-conceived connection between edit and art. Work closely with your editors to connect the story to the design. An evocative headline and descriptive deck should capture the reader and round out the visual elements.

2. Typography. Explore typographic solutions to a design. Look at pushing the limits of your type palette—roman, bold, italic, all caps, all lowercase, large, small, serif and sans serif combined. Play around. And if you’re looking for a unique headline font, there are hundreds of beautiful, well-designed fonts to choose from. Two of our favorite foundries are Font Bureau and Hoefler & Frère-Jones.

3. Design Basics. Scale. Cropping. Negative space. You may not have used these terms since college, but getting back to basics can bring new life to your designs.

4. Imagery. Rules, boxes, dingbats, and graphic forms can illustrate concepts and help create dynamic designs. And while you don’t want to replace professional-quality photography completely, there are some budget-conscious ways to add imagery to your layouts: Consider creating your own images. Combine a selection of photos to make an energetic collage (check out New York magazine’s Party Lines section as an example). If your department has a good digital camera, you can shoot still-life photographs to act as backdrops for your designs. Placing items directly on your scanner can lead to interesting results as well.

5. Color. Last but not least, color can add richness and meaning to a design. Expand the application of your publication’s color palette to keep the pages fresh and inviting. Look at working with colors that have a similar value range so the design doesn’t become like a rainbow. Stay away from introducing new colors, or you will end up expanding your palette too much and watering down your publication’s brand.

The image of the child is cute, and the cover has a nice composition, but my first impression is that the image feels forced. A child with glasses for an article about reading looks contrived—do only children with glasses read? When it comes to the structure of the cover information, there are some issues. The box for the insert feels like it’s floating and would have been more successful if it was tucked into a corner. The remaining cover lines are organized to give the impression that they are related articles instead of unique stories. Finally, all of the information surrounding the logo needs to be better resolved. The tagline, date, and website treatments are busy, while the four small sunbursts are overkill. One, at a legible size, would have been enough.

If you’re interested in having your cover critiqued for the next issue, please email us a PDF. First come, first served.

1. Design. The design vision should be maintained as you translate the publication from print to web. Hold true to the type, color, and image directions. Resist the temptation to use new colors just because you can. Stay away from all those “shiny new web 2.0 toys” if they are not part of your original design strategy.

2. Content. It is crucial to present content in a manner that is accessible and takes advantage of the digital medium. Since reading onscreen is not the preferred choice for most readers, text should be written succinctly. Multiple images in print should be converted to a slideshow with text captions or a video.

3. Usability. The experience of reading a magazine is well defined. Readers either go through in a sequential manner or flip through the pages, stopping when something catches their interest. Reading online is a very different experience. The sequence of the reading order is determined by the user, not the designer or editor as in a print publication. Clear navigation is crucial to the success of the user experience. The readability of the type and the clarity of the images are also major factors. Sound design principles, whether it’s for print or web, are essential.

Attend the PPA conference in New Orleans to learn more about design strategies for print and web. Creative directors Kelly McMurray and Chris St. Cyr will lead the session titled “Implementing a Design Strategy.”

1. Conversation. The problem with a print-only publication is that the conversation is primarily one-way. The writers and editors publish information for the audience; the audience reads and rarely responds. Even when people write in to the editor, it is not a conversation but a response. Taking your publication online allows you to build your reader community by encouraging them to participate in the conversation via social-networking functions such as commenting.
2. Time. There is no way that print can keep up with the speed of interactive media. You may want to create a digital publication that allows the audience to subscribe to a feed so the content can be streamed to an application like Google Reader or My Yahoo Reader. This is the new new delivery.
3. Cost. With the rising cost of paper and postage, you might want to consider downsizing your print publication and focusing instead on creating a robust interactive counterpart. Farewell Christian Science Monitor print version.
4. Exposure. Searchability, sharing, and social networking can build exposure for your publication and organization. This is especially important for circulation-based publications that rely on large readerships. Embrace the wisdom-of-crowds theory. Just ask those Threadless guys.
5. Analysis. Ever wonder what content your readers are finding most interesting? Previously that question could only be answered through market research techniques such as direct mail and focus groups, both of which can be costly. A well-developed companion website allows you to view the user activity and make adjustments based on real data, not vague survey questions.

Step 1. Define why you need to redesign Is your publication meeting reader expectations? Are the design and editorial working as a cohesive package? Is there new direction driven by the editor to be considered? Are there budgetary concerns? Assess the publication from the point of view of all departments: editorial, design, advertising, and circulation.

Step 2. Get Everyone’s Buy-in A successful redesign comes from positive collaboration. Work with all pertinent departments to develop a plan to achieve your goals.

Step 3. Complete Market Research Find out who your readers are. What other magazines and newspapers are they reading? What Web sites and blogs are they visiting? What TV shows do they watch?

Step 4. Determine the Scope of the Redesign Based on the scope of the project, what’s the best way to execute the redesign? Are you looking at minor changes or a complete overhaul? Can you execute the redesign in-house or do you need to outsource it?

Step 5. Set a Schedule and Commit to a Launch Date Whether you do the redesign in-house or outsource it, you will need time to review the design with your staff. There will be lots of back and forth, so be sure to set a realistic timetable to accommodate input from all interested parties.

Now you are ready to kick off the actual process…

Attend the Folio 2008 conference in Chicago, Ill., to hear what happens next. Creative Director Kelly McMurray will lead the session titled “The Six Steps to a Successful Magazine Redesign” on September 23 at 9:45 a.m. Visit Folio Show for more information and to register. Can’t make it? Email me, and I’ll send you a copy of the lecture.

So why is it that we constantly hear about the tension between art and edit when there should be understanding? The creative goal is the same—to create a successful publication that is the product of a collaboration between art and edit. To determine how this relationship can work more effectively, I asked talented editors I have worked with to provide insight. In a nutshell, the answer is respect.

“Editors have to learn that 50 percent of the success of an article/magazine is the packaging/presentation. You need to capture a reader’s attention with both words and images. I think most editors have a tough time understanding that. In turn, I think art directors have to realize that editors are under tremendous pressure to make the magazine work. Ultimately, it is the editor job that is on the line if a mistake is made or a magazine isn’t successful.” —Rob Vosper, Former Editor, InsideCounsel

“Number 1: Respect. This is hugely important. The editor should think of the art director as a collaborator, not simply as a technician who is there to serve the editor’s desires. Number 2: Confidence. The editor must have confidence in his/her own taste in visual matters. Enough confidence, in fact, that he/she can give guidance without micromanaging. The editor must also have confidence that the art director will pay attention to the actual content of the stories. Editors have their failings; we all know that. So do art directors, one of which is to fail to pay detailed enough attention to what the articles actually say. If art directors want to be collaborators, and they should, they need to dig in sufficiently when it comes to designing the magazine.” —John Benditt, President, DrivingWheel Consulting

“My experience has taught me that the best magazines consider the design and edit process to be hand-in-hand. We inadvertently handicap our design team when we don’t bring them into the thinking early enough in the editorial process. I think it’s crucial to not think of the design team as a “service” to the edit function, but rather a partner. That makes all the difference in the world. —Karen Dillon, Deputy Editor, Harvard Business Review

“Both sides need to value the other’s contributions and concerns. The best professionals are both word and visual people. That’s what this job entails, after all, not just one or the other.” —Jane Buchbinder, freelance editor

“I see the role of art director as a translator, as someone who can convey images onto a page, bringing alive and enhancing the words. I think it’s important to approach the relationship as a negotiated one, with the editor suggesting why something doesn’t work, either from a visual or content point of view.” —June Erlick, Editor-in-Chief, ReVista, the Harvard Review of Latin America