SchoolMag guide

This week, in our cut-out-and-keep series, Louise Holden has some tips on design

Last year's overall SchoolMag winner, Side Show, by St Declan's Community College in Waterford, is a great example of the impact of imaginative design. Side Show was a frugal affair, with lots of white space, very few images, no colour and a low budget. Side Show won the day because the artistry, control and consistency of its design gave it a personality that stood head and shoulders over its competitors.

Every fledgling publication has to think carefully about image. If you want to produce a dynamic, contemporary publication to catch the eye of readers in search of something new, don't present your content in traditional formats that speak to a different audience altogether - and vice versa. A reader should know by looking at your publication what he or she may expect to read in it.

Consistency is the key. Some of last year's entrants mixed wild colours with 25 fonts, handwriting with type, and photographs with illustrations, sticking to the more-is-more philosophy. As the winning magazine showed, blank space is nothing to be afraid of.

Once you have agreed the overall look of your magazine, you should try to carry that ethos through everything from the magazine's title and cover art to page numbering, photography and headline fonts. That doesn't mean every magazine needs to be a minimalist black-and-white affair. Busy design will work as long as it maintains a distinctive personality.

Joe Breen, the Irish Times's managing editor for production, has some advice for establishing a "house style"."Don't use loads of headline typefaces. Settle on two that are readily available and stick to them. In addition, grade your page by agreeing on a range of sizes for stories. Be careful with text. Again, decide on the size you want to use and stick to it. The virtue of all this is that your publication will have a consistent and professional look. In addition, within such neat confines it is possible to take the occasional leap into something more visually adventurous.

"The style of font you use, be it serif, sans serif or a combination of both, will convey a message of sorts to your readers," says Breen. "Type and how it is used are very important subliminal factors in the delivery of information. For instance, note the difference in typography between a popular tabloid newspaper and a quality one, such as the London Times or Independent."

The Comic Sans typeface, for example, could make your publication look like a community-centre noticeboard instead of a magazine.

"There are important critical skills involved in dissecting the look of a magazine," says Luke Kilgarriff, art teacher at Loreto Secondary School in Balbriggan, Co Dublin. "It would be interesting to analyse various publications to see how they achieve their individual graphic style - for example, Ireland's Own versus Woman's Own or Heat versus Mojo." The message is, don't leave design to chance. Think of your magazine as a complete product rather than a collection of bits, and forge a strong personality from the start. The judges will notice.

• Next week: Can you change your world with good journalism? For more tips, see www.irishtimesschoolmag.ie