How do you manage copy length/image ratio per article?

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Thomas on September 16, 2008 at 2:05pm

We typically start with a 900 word per page rule and then run the math backwards. We work mostly with trade magazines, association magazines and smaller niche titles and on average I prefer to start with 50% word/image ratio and then scale back from there as necessary. In other words, if an article is 2500 words, then I would prefer to start with roughly 5.5 pages based on 900 words per page and then double it for artwork, callouts, title, etc.

Most of the time, we don't get quite that much room in the end but it's a decent starting point.

I'd like to hear how some other editors/publishers manage this decision.

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Permalink Reply by David Willson on September 19, 2008 at 1:31pm

Well, I have to say that this relates to the last discussion we were engaged in. I'm the zoom out to lay it out guy. If copy to image looks balanced on the page viewed at 30 percent, then it takes care of itself.

With my last publication, 900 words would have been a little copy heavy for our feature articles. We defined our design style from the beginning as image-rich. However, toward the back of the book, we ran some more trade oriented stories and 850 to 900 words was about par.

My only other comment in addition to what you already have said is that oftentimes a well written caption with a well selected photo, or a well designed information graphic can replace whole paragraphs worth of copy. I'd rather cut the words and tell it in a more interesting way with illustrations.

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Thomas on September 19, 2008 at 1:50pm

Completely agreed, there's definitely a bit of crossover between this discussion, the previous one and even the pagination software discussion!

To clarify a little bit, I don't think we ever actually use 900 words per page ... that number is more or less a "measuring stick" of how many words could fit on a page if there is no title, no callout, no quote, no images, etc.

It's sort of like saying "there's 12 inches in a foot, how long do you want it to be?"

The 900/page is our foot.

Basically, what I'm wondering is what/how do other publishers/editors/art departments plan out article length prior to actually working on the article. Granted, it all changes once the artwork and text actually show up, but typically, there is some sort of planning prior to production.

Static, template-based departments are always much easier to plan out since those article lengths are usually predefined by a concrete word-count, but what kind of planning do other publishers do for features?

Do you use a formula to govern page count, word count and artwork space?

Or an even better example, is this very common question:

"I'm working on pagination and I have a 2,000 word article with fairly decent artwork ... how many pages should I devote to it?"

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