Art Direction and Editorial Design

by Yolanda Zappaterra

Thousands of magazines, newspapers, and journals are launched every year, but only a handful survive. What gives these few newcomers their staying content? branding? design?

Art Direction and Editorial Design is an accessible and comprehensive guide to visual journalism—the design of magazines and newspapers, both in their print and online forms. Illustrated with case studies, examples, practical exercises, and tips, the book explains the fundamentals of editorial design and layout. It provides an overview of current editorial design practices and explains how design and production for publications is organized while also tackling broad issues that can often make or break careers in the field.

Subjects covered include branding, how to create layouts, handling copy and images, design and production skills, and trends in the field. Included are interviews with and profiles of such leading influential figures as Neville Brody, Tyler Brûlée, David Carson, Felix Dennis, Fernando Gutiérrez, and Eamonn McCabe, as well as examples of work by M.F. Agha, Alexey Brodovitch, Willy Fleckhaus, Henry Wolf, Cipe Pineles, and Fabien Baron.

Genres: Design, Business, Art

208 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2007

Reviews

[Alejandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are looking for a book about Art Direction, this is not it. There is little in regards to either Art Direction for advertising or for film and photography, which is where most Art Direction is done. However this book is a great resource for Editorial Design, it has really good examples and gives good definitions on the elements of graphic design in editorial. So, to me the title is misleading, because I actually bought the book for my research on Art Direction and it has served me very little.
One more factor to take into account is that this book feels very outdated, it was published in 2007, so all the examples feel old, but the concepts are still relevant.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent advice on editorial design. The information in this book can be applied to website, newsletters (email or print), as well as magazines. Graphic design professors might find this book useful in teaching, and students would benefit from reading and learning the principles outlined in Art Direction and Editorial Design.

[Carole · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting introduction to a field about which I knew nothing

[Roman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful, physically hurt to read, this book gave me covid

[Ramon de Santiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why don't we have a book like this about American publication design? The author has superb examples and analysis of layout design and the use of text as both information and visual texture. We really need a book like this which focuses on how we experience visual information and how designers structure content (and manipulate readers).