4 Key Areas of Changes in Editorial Design (Magazine)

Technological Change

• The first black and white magazine: Gentleman's Magazine was printed in 18th century.
• Movable type, only one color printing, print on normal paper.
• In addition, printing cost was high, the number of printed copies was in a small amount, due to impossible to squeeze a larger amount of paper through the machine.
• There is no computer and everything like visual or images was done manually.
• In the early 19th century, the first high quality printed magazine was published, which is a business magazine - Fortune, with pages in full color.
• Magazine include text, images and photos.
• Publisher print magazines on glossy paper rather than paper that previously used.
• The printing machine able to produce large amount of magazine and it has shorten the production time.
• Design software such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and In Design have been created to help designers in designing the magazine layout and modify images without do things manually.
• In the wake of time changing and the rapid development on new technology, Internet become an important new information medium in our life.
• With the demand of people finding information / reading online publishers start to publish the online copy of magazine, which is electronic magazines (E-zines).
• E-zines contains a stylized mixture of content convey in an interactive way.
• Print magazine also has an electronic edition, such as National Geographic and People.
• There are also e-mail newsletters, which people can subscribe. 
• Digital magazines with rich, uncompromising , real-time content comer the market on delivering what we need to know right now.
• Print publications already under siege by the internet and 24 hours news cycle.
• Editorial content not only move online and shrinking to fit computer screen, it even smaller for PDAs and 140 words tweet. 
• Smartphone or devices raised up such as I phone, I pad, Samsung and many others.
• These smart electronic devices became a great tool to help people access internet and obtain information easily on people’s palm.

Cultural Change

• There are many magazines published in different country. The way and concept they applied to design a magazines are different from each others.
• The content and elements of art that use in the magazine are based on country’s culture.
• For example, European modern art movement like Art Decor, Cubism and Surrealism were major influenced on the editorial style in U.S. Magazine.
• In the 19th century, magazines have the power to influenced people’s thinking and behavior.
• Elle magazine was launched and it greatly changed the way women think, speak and perceive themselves. This magazine instructed French women how to be attractive and nice.
• Every country have their unique culture, and this culture will show in magazine through the color, language, pattern and images they applied in magazine. 
• In the 18th century, people read magazines in order to satisfy their interest.
• It is a trend people reading magazine. They read magazine to obtain the information they wish to know.
• In the society today, people read magazine for leisure purpose.
• Instead of buy a printed magazine, many people prefer to use their computer, smart phone or tablet to access the information and visuals that they would like to look in.
• Due to high technology devices occupied our life and people with busy lifestyle, people change their behavior towards read magazine online than printed magazine.

Social Change

• People start to read magazine not because of daily news. Magazines provide people the information that they are interest in.
• Different genre of magazines satisfied people’s needs and interest.
• Many people choose to read magazines instead of reading a book in past time, one of the important reason is those attractive and colorful images implanted in magazines or for specific knowledge and updates.
• Due to Industrial Revolution, magazine has become common and affordable, therefore more and more people were willing to purchase and read magazines.
• People read magazine to keep themselves up to date, for personal interest, self-help and for entertainment.
• Magazine is a kind of leisure publications for people to read interesting content.
• Usually, people read magazine during their recess time or free time. Reading magazine become a way for them to relax themselves.
• Besides, people wish to know something that they curious and find their answer through reading magazine, for example current society fashion trend and movie news.
• In the 21st century, people like holding all information on their hand and stay at their home without going out to explore and gain knowledge.
• Due to the benefits using smart electronic devices and internet to read magazine online, people start to neglected printed magazine.
• Now, people can subscript to e-zines, and read their favorite magazine online.
• Instead of waiting for the printed issues to be delivered to book store or house, they can now read online magazine with instant access.
• People with the busy lifestyle today, they have a more convenience way to obtain information immediately without going  to book store and find the magazine, which is more time saving.
• Based on some people saying that, one of the advantage they found in reading magazine online is they can save space for physical storage at home.
• Even though reading magazine online is easy and able to access information quickly, but people will feedback that their eyes will feel tired.
• There are people still stand in front of the magazine area and spent their time to read printed magazine. 

Contextual Change

• Magazines are form by combining of design elements, such as Language, Type Face, Visuals, Color, Layout and etc.
• Previously, magazines contain formal information like social news, poetry and stories.  
• The genre and topics of magazines have been changing , there are more variety now based on people interest , lifestyle, needs, and trend in the community and generation.
• Magazine publishers have their own company and industry in their own country.
• Magazines were launched to other country as well.
• For some famous magazine company, they also establish their production line or office in another country.
• They also sold their production line to the existing company in that country to publish same brand and name’s magazine in their country.
• These magazine called overseas edition magazine.
• Overseas Edition Magazine contain some content or news that is from their main company in original country, but the magazine will be localizes.
• Designer and editor localizes the magazine by put in local news, the style of images and photos by follow the country culture and change the language.

Flux in Fashion Magazines

Fashion Magazine

The first notion of fashion illustrated began with the courts of aristocracy recording information about what they were wearing. In the late 16th and 17th century, French women and dressmakers outside of the court relied on sketches to see what was being worn. The sketches were compiled in books that were reproduced and sold, most notably the Mercure Galant.

Since the beginning of 18th century, reading fashion magazine became a sign of a good taste. By that time, Europe had published several magazines, mostly fashion. They published as many as four fashion magazines, all of them were illustrated with color drawings or engraving representing the smallest details of new clothes. These publications started featuring articles about cosmetics, hygiene and physical education, a variety of recipes and even fashion dresses patterns.

In 19th century, fashion magazines begin to feature photography. Magazines begin to expand content to feature journalism articles about women’s suffrage, socialites, men's fashion and articles about working women fashion.enhancements in color printing reduce cost and improve both quantity and quality of magazines available.Fashion media such as cable television begin to compete with magazines.

By the beginning of the 20th century, more new magazines devoted to fashion, needlework and household management appeared. Those magazine's content was of universal nature, from new books and tips on housekeeping to the amusement games and pictures of fashion.

In the past 300 years, fashion magazines have changed a great deal from outside. Yet, the basic topics remain the same - how to become beautiful, loved and happy.

Editorial Designer (Magazine)

What is Editorial Design?

Editorial Design is an exercise in combining technical detail with artistic flair. The core components of editorial design are text and pictures, so a keen understanding of typography, layouts, grids and composition is essential. In fact, magazines perhaps more than any other format show how the many elements of graphic design can come together in one place: images, illustration, photography, logos and mastheads, information design, paper stock and so on.

Changes & Current Force Within Editorial Design (Magazine)

Beginnings of Print Magazines

Magazines as known as periodicals, serials, glossies, slicks are publications that appear on a regular schedule and contain a variety of articles. 

They are financed by advertising, a purchase price, prepaid subscriptions or sometimes all three of these means. 

The English word magazine recalls a military storehouse of war materiel and originally was derived from the Arabic word makhazin meaning "storehouses." The term magazine was coined for this use by Edward Cave, editor of The Gentleman's Magazine. 

The first modern general-interest magazine, The Gentleman's Magazine was published due to people are interest in different topics, news and articles rather than political news during 18th century. The magazine published in England as entertainment with essays, stories, poems and political commentary. 

The Gentleman's Magazine was printed in black and white color only, the printing cost was high, and the number of printed copies could not be greater than one hundred thousand, because it was technically impossible to squeeze a larger amount of paper through the machine. Distribution was also a big problem because it was difficult to move large quantities of magazines at great distances.

Rise of the Magazines

In the mid of 18th century to the earlier of 19th century, there were no computers and almighty Photoshop, everything was done manually by editorial designer, and the main tools were pencils, erasers, rulers, tape. It took around 4 months to produce one issue. 

In the wake of increasing peoples' interest and demand in the society, the types of magazine become variety, such as: Business Magazine, Travel Magazine, Fashion Magazine, Food Magazine and etc. Fortune, a business magazine is known for being the first high-quality printed magazine, with pages in full color and also invented photo-journalism. 

Evolution of the Magazines

Photo-journalism, or the telling of stories through photography, also became popular during the early 20th century. Although magazines has been running illustrations since the 19th century, as photography grew in popularity so did picture magazine. 

During 19th century, there are provocative, fashion and celebrity magazines from different country, these kind of magazine has been the most selling one. Those years brought a boom of women's magazines. The paper quality of magazines are improve, most of the magazine started to print on glossy paper rather than normal paper. 

Electronic Magazine

In 20th century, as advanced technology developed, internet has play an important role in our life, we can search everything we want to know through internet and without go to library or book shop to find the information that we need. Some publisher saw website as as a good platform and opportunity to reach an audience electronically and more economically than was possible with print medium, so they published E-zine on web.

An early use of the term E-zine (electronic magazine) described a new kind of website that contained a stylized mixture of content conveyed in a way that exploited and celebrated the web as a new information medium. E-zine is also used to described any print magazine such as National Geographic that also has an electronic edition. In addition, E-zine also include e-mail newsletters, of which there are thousands that can be subscribed to. 

Smart Electronic Devices

In the 21st century, many publisher switched their magazines to conventional formats to save money on paper and mailing. The editorial content started to moving online, shrinking to fit computer screens and even smaller for smartphone (I phone or Samsung), PDAs and 140 character tweets. 

Print publications already under siege by the internet and 24-hour news cycle, people adapt to  a world of instantaneous updates. This is most obvious for news and business publications, but it's just as true for fashion, entertainment and specialized titles.

In the society today, people have a busy lifestyle, thanks to the advent smartphone , we can access any magazines in the palm of our hand. People go for online magazine than printed magazine because of the reason below:-
- convenience 
- speed and accessibility
- cost effective
- variety
- easy to use
Besides, online magazines are enriched with video, sound than paper-based contents and thereby more interesting and interactive.

Print is Not Dead

The article below is from a site call Magazine Designing, which I love one of the subtitle there - "Print is Not Dead", and I used it as the conclusion for all my findings.

Some have predicted the death of the magazines, just like they have predicted the death of the newspapers in the 90′s, but neither newspapers died, and neither will the magazines. There will still be printed magazines, no matter how popular tablet editions are. Yes, the numbers will drop but they will never die.

IPad is a great tool, and it brings new possibilities in magazine production for sure, but it cannot replace that feeling of paper between your fingers. That smell of freshly printed pages. There will always be a need for printed magazines.

Magazines shape our lives, telling us what to wear, what to eat, what to think about ourselves and the world around us. Although this is the age of the Internet, we continue to enjoy magazines, admire their pages, editorials, headlines. Is there anything nicer than to come home after a hard day’s work, put on slippers, sit back in a sofa and read a favorite magazine that you just grabbed at the local newsstand?