Content design services for all periodical types

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Professional content design for men's magazine
Content Design about a Table of Contents on Tablet

Content design is not an obvious publishing term. Your magazine or other periodical cannot simply rely on good content and good design. The content itself must be researched and geared toward the core audiences of your publication for purely business-centric reasons. These choices ultimately flow from your periodical’s mission, and may impact your brand.

Content design can include many different aspects of programming (“coding”), brand research, competitor intelligence, writing, graphic design, and UI (user interface design). Together, these disciplines make up content design.

The role of graphic content design
Competitive intelligence (CI) reveals a lot about your audience’s graphic expectations.

CI can unveil how competitors within your niche are scoring points with their (and your) intended audiences. The graphic design of the periodical in print will demonstrate certain differences from online graphic design. The difference can provide insights as to how your competitor understands the imperatives of their audience.

Compare your true audience against your competitors’.

This helps you to understand where their audience traits end and your own begin. A magazine about music, for example, will ultimately have differing imperatives than on on haute couture fashion, even if both presumably are focused on the same age and gender demographic. Music magazine audiences overall often venture beyond stereotypes whereas some magazine genres may appeal directly to a narrow cross-section of demographic traits.

Know the true customer profiles of your audiences.

This allows the publisher to know how best to design graphic elements intelligently. Color palette should be used wisely in relation to your actual audience demographics and the predominant mood involved in their core interests. For instance, black and red are key colors used in online gaming magazines due to the competitiveness of the color red and the seriousness of the color black. Competitive seriousness are key elements of the online gamer mentality for most fast-paced action-oriented games.

Moreover, some choices like typography and spacing may impact textual content design. Silly fonts won’t go over well with a news magazine audience trying to get serious about a current issue. They might, however, work well with an alternative music magazine aimed at 18-26 middle class college students. Such visual elements can contribute to the overall tone of the articles and of the magazine brand itself.

Get your content design started.
To begin a conscious effort to realize the best possible content design, plug Flip180 Media into the equation! We and our extended partners can plug into all aspects of your magazine or company periodical content design to create positive, empowering user experiences that bring them back for more.
Female graphic designer plans mobile-friendly publishing layout - Publishing solutions

Research & writing

Like with the graphic design model, textual content can have a distinct valence, angle, and voice that differs on the same subject matter that differs between periodicals. A magazine about yachts, for example, won’t likely be very DIY, but will focus more on luxury lifestyle consumer choices that go well with the purchase of a yacht.

The text, then, should take the subject matter of an article with this angle and corresponding demographics in view. The valence may be extremely different from say a magazine about current events with a politically partisan slant.

Textual content subject matter, tone, and valence are key factors. These can all contribute to very different graphic design choices. And likewise, graphic design may frame the text in incongruent ways. Special care must be taken to match graphic design with the textual content. Likewise, both must conform to the overall audiences developed in the brand research phase of developing your magazine or periodical.

The role of UI
User interface comes into play with the online version of your magazine

When taking your magazine or periodical online, it’s not enough to simply provide a magazine-like experience online. Providing a magazine-oriented experience of an online publication is useful., but the requirements of online engagement are also a factor to be considered.

Thoughtful user interface design allows the content to be consumed more easily

By enhancing the experience of navigation and of consuming the content itself, the user experience overall is heightened. Highlighting, bookmarking, and commenting allow greater engagement and the creation of the feeling of community of like-minded peers. In particular, young audiences are more inclined to make connections online than than older counterparts.

An online periodical’s content design should adapt well to the medium

Online apps and websites provide ways to make the experience of being online less painful or irritating, since many things can go awry when surfing on a contraption for the right information and trying to consistently press tiny screen-represented buttons or having to touch-click site links accurately.

Your magazine or periodical should provide easier ways to navigate to key sections. Searches should be facilitated without demanding constant user effort.

Well-crafted content design for hardware store website on laptop screen
What people say about us
I receive emails on a regular basis that speak to the quality of the designs of our magazine. The people that we work with are always over the moon in regard to how articles appear. We are receiving more than double the amount of traffic coming through our site as a result of the redesigned e-reader. Flip180 serves as more of a partner as opposed to being just a service provider. They're always ahead of the curve in terms of digital publishing. It's more than apparent that they are educating themselves constantly on digital publishing trends. It's just great to know that they have our best interests at heart.

Abbe Miller

Editor-in-Chief at Techgen Media Group.

When I get to see the final result, I am always amazed, because it looks extremely professional, even though it is very easy to work with. I think this is a perfect example of a modern, minimalistic design which is trending now. The company is always offering up-to-date products, and this simply which shows their experience and skills in the digital publishing field. Thank you, it's always a pleasure to work with you.

Victoria A

Content writer

Flip180 has an exceptional design team. They are meticulous in their attention to detail and always meet our proposed deadlines. Aesthetically speaking, Sarunas and Vee have a great eye for graphics and always manage to incorporate stylistically-appropriate images for our quarterly magazines. The finished product is impressive! We are happy to recommend their services.

Liz Amato

Vice President of International Digital and Social Media Content for the National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners.

Flip180 Media is always on time, which allows us to make our deadlines.

Devon Johnson

Founder & CEO, BleuLife Media Group, Inc

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