MAGAZINE TEMPLATE DESIGN
Equity Magazine
The challenge
The Australian Shareholders' Association initially approached me to redesign Equity Magazine, their monthly flagship publication. Their challenge was two-fold, one from a design and another from a budget perspective.
In terms of the design challenge, feedback from readers was that the text in the existing magazine was tricky to read due to the small body copy text size. Additionally, some read the magazine digitally, on a tablet, which meant that the existing two-column layout wasn’t as easy to read as a one-column layout, since readers would have to scroll again to the top of each page in order to start reading the second column. The existing magazine also made limited use of the ASA's branding, particularly on the cover. The ASA team wanted the design to more prominently feature their distinctive green colour palette and brand personality, in addition to their three categories of “Education”, “Community” and “Advocacy”.
In terms of the budget challenge, as a not-for-profit association, a full magazine redesign, on top of the ongoing monthly design work, wasn't practical. So, the challenge pivoted to finding a way to refresh the magazine, while keeping the process simple enough for their in-house team to manage themselves. Read on to see the solution…
*note: placeholder text and images used in mockups
MAGAZINE TEMPLATE DESIGN
The solution
Rather than creating a one-off redesign, I developed a flexible, single-page magazine template in Canva that the ASA team could reuse for every new issue. The template included two new cover options, a contents page, story page layouts and a dedicated Team page, alongside guidance on how to use imagery, pull quotes and other visual elements consistently.
A big focus was making the template genuinely user-friendly. The layouts were designed so the in-house team could easily populate them without needing advanced design skills, with clear instructions and a video walkthrough provided to help them get comfortable using the system. The design also brought the ASA’s green colour palette much more prominently into the magazine, creating a stronger visual connection between the publication and the wider organisation. It also allowed the three categories to be featured more prominently, by way of a coloured tab in the top right of the pages, so readers knew which category each article relates to.
The outcome
The result was a magazine that was professional, cohesive and recognisably ASA, without requiring an ongoing external design budget. Most importantly, the team could now produce each issue themselves using a template that is both on-brand and cost-friendly. The project was a great example of how creating the right system, in this case a custom magazine template, solves the immediate creative challenge while giving the client the confidence and tools to keep producing great work themselves.
Client kudos
“We are publishing today, we made it! Thanks again for creating such a beautiful template for us to use.”
— Caity, Australian Shareholders' Association