Creating a Magazine: Borasaek Vision

Have you ever wondered how magazines are created? Be that you’re just curious, or want to work in publishing one day, today is your lucky day! We’ll take a look at how Borasaek Vision is created—from planning to design.

First of all, creating a magazine is a team effort. We have several teams of amazing volunteers collaborating with each other to make it possible. What teams do we have? There’s planning, design, research, writing and blogging, editing, web design, and social media. Today, we focus on planning and design!

The Planning Process

To make this easy, let’s start by dividing the general planning process into simple steps. Step one is always being on the lookout for what is happening in BTS and ARMY spaces, to identify relevant topics. Next, at least a couple of weeks before assigning articles to the writers, the planning managers propose ideas and brainstorm them with their team. The purpose of that step is to come up with clear article proposals for the writers to claim, as well as the overall shape of the issue.

Next, let’s take a closer look at a few key elements you have to consider when planning a magazine: themes and direction you’re following, order of the articles, and editorial.

General Theme of the Issue

Our magazine issues always have a central idea that we want to cover in-depth, and each of the articles explores it from a different perspective. That general theme can vary a lot. We generally write about topics related to BTS and ARMY, but we also like to include others adjacent to them, such as art, literature, or psychology. Even if the discussions aren’t always directly about BTS, more often than not, the band has made ARMY curious about them.

In fact, Borasaek Vision intends to evolve with BTS and the times. Our team hopes to continue creating this magazine as the band enters the second chapter of their career. No matter what that might look like, we want to continue exploring topics that are interesting to ARMY, including ones that go beyond BTS themselves, like traveling, Korean culture, or mythology.

Order of the Articles and Editorial

Like a good album, a magazine issue must organize its articles in an order that makes sense and flows nicely. Unfortunately, finding the right order isn’t an exact science, but there are a few things to consider. Are there longer articles that’ll need additional pages? Are some articles explaining concepts that can improve the understanding of the other ones? Overall, like an album, it might depend on the story you want to tell, so we choose the one that feels right to us.

The Editorial also helps to shape that story, by bringing together what’s happening inside and outside of the BTS and ARMY microcosm. Guided by the general theme, its job is to set the tone and establish the message that we’re trying to communicate on that specific issue.

The Design Process

Now comes the step where our ideas and articles are transformed into visuals for the magazine. Once again, let’s divide the design process into steps for more clarity.

First, the design team decides what concepts and themes can work with the articles they received, and proceed to research them. With the visual references they get, they create a mood board that shows the general aesthetic, concept, and tone of the issue. Next, they sketch and ultimately choose a couple of ideas, and assign the team members the tasks necessary to make them a reality. Anyone can be in charge of anything, so everyone in the team gets a chance at different tasks.

Now, let’s examine a few additional elements to get more familiar with the design process: aesthetics, cover, layout, and font.

From Theme to Aesthetic

This is of course an art, so each designer has their own approach to transforming themes into visuals. One approach that our team takes is narrowing it down to 3 words and colors. For example, look at our traveling issue. The words were freedom, nature, and space, while the colors were green, white, and yellow. Can you see them represented in it?

The cover is designed with those aesthetics in mind, but it also needs to be able to catch the eye of possible readers and tell them what it is about without revealing everything, and ultimately convince them to pick it up.

Layout and Font

The layout of the magazine is the way in which the text and visual elements are organized on the pages. This is the base that helps you recognize a specific magazine’s style. The key elements to creating a good layout are consistency and flexibility. Although that might sound contradictory, the goal is to keep a balance between having a recognizable magazine and keeping each issue feeling fresh and fun by breaking your own rules a little bit.

Finally, consistency and flexibility also apply to the fonts you choose. Have a small selection that works well, and always remember that your font needs to communicate the right theme, and tone, and be easy to read before anything else.

What We’ve Learned

Want to create your own magazine or work with one? Here’s some advice from us!

Communication is key. Talk to each other at all points of the process. Keep the lines open and make sure everyone knows how to contact other teams and feels comfortable doing so.

Teamwork is essential. Embrace collaboration and the beauty of multiple perspectives. Work together for a common goal, and your team shall make the dream work!

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DISCLAIMER: We do not own any audio & visual content in this video except for the editing. ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO THE RIGHTFUL OWNERS. No copyright infringement intended.

Written By: Rebeca

Edited By: Shelley

Checked By: Juju