Publishing Tips Archives - Picante Publications

How to Choose the Right Paper Stock for Your Magazine

If you're planning on publishing a print edition of your magazine and haven't yet gotten around to requesting printing bids, you'll likely soon find out that printing and mailing/distribution costs can make up a large portion of your operating expenses — so planning ahead and educating yourself on the printing process can make a world of difference both to your budget and in the final quality of the finished product. One factor that can have a major impact on your printing costs is the actual paper (often referred to as "paper stock" in the industry) on which your magazine will be printed.

Magazine Design and the Beauty of White Space

If you’re an editor who loves a thorough, well-written piece, the whole idea of leaving white space in a layout — space that could be filled with more words — might not make much sense. The idea behind white space, however, isn’t to take away from your content. Quite to the contrary, white space and other important design elements should work together to create a synergy with the editorial that enables your stories to come alive and hit home with readers. If you’re trying to cram every nook and cranny in the design with something, you may need to step back and evaluate whether all that content really is adding to or detracting from the reading...

Magazine Publishing for Nonprofit Organizations: Engagement is Everything

While direct mail donation solicitations may form the backbone of many nonprofits’ fundraising efforts, are they enough to meet your organization’s financial needs, and could there be a better vehicle for moving your supporters to give? Many nonprofits are now turning to publishing a regular magazine to help them connect and stay engaged with stakeholders.

Magazine Publishing Tip: The Prototype Issue ‘Soft Launch’

So you have a great idea for a new magazine. You have some or all of the editorial copy ready to go for the first issue, but you don't have enough advertisers signed on to support publication costs. And, of course, you don't have the circulation numbers to help you market to prospective advertisers. In short, you've found yourself in a common conundrum faced by many new magazine publishers. So what to do?

Glossary of Magazine Design Jargon, Terms and Definitions for New Publishers

Here at Picante, we work on designing and producing magazine issues just about every single day. It occurred to me recently that, as part of our workflow, we rely on a lot of graphic design terminology that might come across as confusing jargon to new publishers — so I decided to put together a glossary of terms and definitions that hopefully will prevent some of that confusion.

How to Create the Right Magazine Design for Your Niche Audience

Here at Picante we've created magazine designs across a wide variety of subject matter over the years. And when it comes to developing designs for such a broad range of topics, we've found that a few general guidelines apply to all of them — and to laying the groundwork for success with any publication.

Outreach International annual report layout

Empowering Your Annual Report Design to Connect With Stakeholders

Once simply a vehicle for communicating the facts and figures behind an organization's bottom line, the annual report in recent years has evolved into a powerful tool for establishing and enhancing connections. While numerical data certainly does reveal part of the picture, a properly planned and designed annual report can achieve and convey a great deal more, empowering organizations to tell their individual stories and convey their unique visions in human, real-world terms.

How to Get Printing Bids for Your Magazine Design Project

if you're a publisher of any kind, from magazines to annual reports to catalogs and beyond, you'll likely have to make yourself familiar and comfortable with the printing process and educate yourself on how to plan for and request print bids. This post will help walk you through this aspect of the publishing business.

Magazine Design and Publishing for Hospitals: How to Get Started

Magazines can serve a number of valuable objectives for hospital organizations looking to get their many public outreach messages out to the population of a local or regional service area. In this post, we lay out the path to help you get your hospital's magazine up and running, as well as cover some design tips to consider when developing the magazine's look and feel.

Energy of the City Magazine photography sample

Magazine Design and the Importance of High-Quality Photography

Few aspects of a magazine, except perhaps the overall quality of the design itself, can drastically impact the reader experience — positively or negatively — quite like the quality of photography used in an issue. At its best, photography can act in a kind of synergy with the magazine's layout elements, lending a sense of artfulness and professionalism to an otherwise-solid design sensibility. And at its worst, low-quality shots can undermine all the hard work the magazine designer has put into his or her creation. This article is intended primarily for new magazine publishers who need some help getting their photography up to snuff.