Fast Company is a business magazine that is published in print and online 10 times per year. It averages about 100 pages per issue and has the dimensions of a standard magazine. The cover is thick with almost a rough, matte finish. The February 2018 issue has four different cover designs featuring different business leaders for the feature story “How to Lead with Optimism.”
The right and left margins are approximately half an inch. The top margin is generally much larger, averaging about 1.5 inches. The number of columns varies throughout the magazine. Some stories follow a six column grid, with a 1/16 inch margin in between the columns. Others follow a two column grid with wider outside margins. In the six column grid, the story text does not end on an even line, which creates a jagged look and confuses the eye.
Fast Company uses white space to create a visual hierarchy. The February issue features mostly two-page profiles spreads of business leaders accompanied by portrait style photos, as show below.
I’d like to get my hands on another copy to see how they layout more text-heavy stories, but overall I think that Fast Company’s use of space helps to establish their brand. I plan on subscribing to Fast Company so that I can have access to digital issues and the archive of more than 100 past issues, in order to get a better feel for the magazine’s design style.
Amanda, please make sure before you pay for a subscription that the “digital issues” are images of the actual magazine spreads rather than the content transferred to website format. Alternately, consider using the copies at Bird Library.