How to Design & Create your own Digital Magazine
Find out what a digital magazine is, how to create a digital magazine, and an amazing course that will walk you through everything about creating a digital magazine in this article!
A digital magazine is a really fun way of sharing information with others easily and completely online.
You can create a digital magazine for your own personal use, as well as create a digital magazine for your readers and subscribers if you run a business.
Find out what a digital magazine is, how to create a digital magazine, and an amazing course that will walk you through everything about creating a digital magazine in this article!
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What is the Purpose of a Digital Magazine?
A digital magazine is a magazine that is created in a graphic design program and is used on an electronic device, such as a computer, iPad or iPhone.
Traditional magazines are in a printed format. A digital magazine is read on the electronic device instead.
The digital magazine is exactly the same as a printed magazine. It has the same amount of pages and content. Its delivery format is just different.
Below is an example of the front page of a digital magazine that was created using the Design Your Own Digital Magazine Course.
Who is a Digital Magazine For?
A digital magazine can be created just for you personally, as a scrapbook of sorts to keep things in and record things.
You could also create a magazine for your family and friends, to share fun things and happy times.
If you have a business, of any kind, you could create a digital magazine for readers, customers, or subscribers. To showcase projects, products and more.
A digital magazine can be a much more interesting replacement for a regular newsletter or email. It is more interactive and will get noticed far more.
In fact most creators who have a digital magazine that they share with subscribers, readers, customers etc report that it gets far more traffic than even their regular website.
People love digital magazines. They are fun to read and use, and reading them feels easy and natural to do.
Related: Take an Amazing Journey with Yourself: The Magic is you!
Why do you Want to Create a Digital Magazine?
There are so many reasons you could create a digital magazine for your own personal use:
For a Family Reunion. To showcase articles on where the reunion is taking place, spotlight on certain family members, family stories etc.
For your Wedding. To let your guests know all kinds of details in a fun format, share your story etc.
To Document your Travels. If you traveled to a special place you could create a magazine full of photos and writings about your travels.
To Document a Home Renovation. If your home is going through a major renovation it could be fun to show before and after photos, and some writings about how things are going.
As a way of recording fun times with your friends. You could share photos and stories from fun times spent with friends.
Documenting the life of a new pet. If you get a new pet you can document its life from babyhood to adulthood.
Share Family Recipes. Share recipes with family members, especially recipes that have been handed down.
Document certain occasions such as Christmas, Thanksgiving & more.
If you have a business and/or are a creative you can use a digital magazine in many ways too:
To repurpose content. If you have a blog and website you could publish your best content in a digital magazine to share.
Deepen your Community. If you have a community of followers, fans, and customers you could open up submissions to them for the magazine – deepening the community around your business and brand.
Sell Items. If you sell items that you have made you could showcase them in a digital magazine.
Gift Guides. You could create special digital gift guides around the holidays for your readers and subscribers.
Related: How to Create Pretty Emails for your Subscribers
What are the Benefits of a Digital Magazine?
A digital magazine is easy to share with others online. It can also have much more interactive content than a traditional magazine.
A digital magazine is also more convenient for readers. They don’t have to go somewhere to purchase it, or wait for it to arrive in the mail, they can get the magazine immediately to their electronic device.
Digital magazines are also a different marketing tool to use. They are more unique, and studies have shown that readership is high for digital magazines.
Creating a magazine digitally means you don’t have to pay to have it printed, which can be very expensive too.
The Design your own Digital Magazine Course
There is an amazing course by The Magic is You that goes through all stages of designing your own digital magazine.
This course is what got me into designing digital magazines! I came across it by chance one day and I was completely hooked.
This course makes it really easy for you to design a digital magazine. It has lots of videos and modules that walk you through every stage of planning, design and publishing your magazine.
The course even gives you the templates to use for your magazine. All you need is Canva graphic design software (that is free), and you can turn the provided templates into your own beautiful magazines.
The videos and modules in the course are easy and fast to follow and implement. You don’t have to work your way through endless videos and information.
All the information provided is succinct and so easy to follow, and you can implement it all immediately yourself.
The course is also set up for you if you want to have collaborators on your magazine. With forms for collaboration invites, and even a Trello board to track contributors and ideas.
Related: What is a Digital Planner? All you Need to Know about Creating & Using a Digital Planner
The course walks you through the following:
Establish your Magazine Brand Book
This is where you define everything about your magazine – the style, the colors, the tone, fonts, words, values and more.
You obviously want to use your own branding if possible. For instance if you want to incorporate your own brand colors and fonts etc. But you can also just create a new branding for this magazine.
The course has an entire module walking you through how to create your own magazine brand book. There is a great Canva template already set up for you to use and fill in with all the things about your magazine.
You are shown how to find the right fonts, photography, graphics and more for your magazine.
There are all kinds of tips and suggestions for implementing color schemes, finding font ideas, and more.
Customizing your Page Templates
How to edit all the pages of your digital magazine using the provided templates.
This includes the front and back covers, table of contents, and more.
How to Organize Your Content
How to organize all the content for your digital magazine.
This includes how to organize collaborations from other writers and creators for your magazine, how to organize your content using a Trello board (plus a Trello board template is included).
It also includes how to use Google Docs to plan and keep track of your content.
How to Actually Design your Magazine
This module in the course shows you how to plug in your magazine articles, how to make the pages flow nicely, and how to download and publish your digital magazine.
Extra Tips & Tricks Video
This video shows you lots of extra tips and tricks, including how to move around and resize graphics, inserting clip art and so much more.
Have lots of fun designing digital magazines! Don’t forget to check out this inexpensive course that covers all aspects of designing a digital magazine and gives you a template to use too!
Find out what a digital magazine is, how to create a digital magazine, and an amazing course that will walk you through everything about creating a digital magazine in this article!