Parts of a Magazine-The Anatomy of a Magazine

• Art
  In magazine design and layout, all photographs, illustrations, and graphics are all art.
• Backbone / Spine
  Where magazine pages are bound (glued, stapled, stiched).
• Baseline
  The baseline is the line upon which characters sit, and below which extenders extend (letters like lower-case p and q have extenders). Columns of text on a magazine page will often share a commomn baseline.
• Bleed
  Bleed is the overlap of content over the trim line. The bleed is cut away in the trimming process, and ensures that content goes right to the edge in the finished product.
• BOB
  Back of book.
  Back of book content tends towards reader-engagement. This is where surveys, puzzles, quizzes, product reviews, user submitted content, and the like are most often published. Back of book is also where smaller format advertising is common.
• Body
  Most text in a magazine is in the same font, size and leading, this text is referred to as the body.
  • Byline
    The byline is the line stateing who the piece is by.
  • Callout / Callout Box
    Callout is is used to describe both a piece of graphically attached to a graphic explaining some aspect of, as well as a piece of text from the nearby body, displayed as at a larger size to emphasize the point.
  • Caption
    A caption is a short line of text descibing a photograph or other image.
  • Centerfold / Center Spread (UK)
    The name comes from the middle fold of a magazine, the middle, where the stiching/staples go in a traditionally bound print magazine, but centerfold and center spread both refer to the content of those central pages.
  • Cover
    Usually refers to a magazine's front cover - the face of the magazine. The cover is what readers see first. Good covers sell issues. Good issues sell subscriptions, and a satisfied subscriber will re-up, and in digital, buy back issues.
  • Cover Date / Pull Date
    The cover date is the date printed on the cover of the magazine. While that seems rather obvious, it is not the actual date of publication. In the US, Canada, and UK the cover date is often several weeks to several months in the future of the publication date. Also known as the pull date, the cover date tells retailers when they can start pulling issues off the shelf to return for refund.
    The cover date also serves to preserve an appearance of fresh content, increasing the shelf life of each issue.
    • Credit
      Credit is a small caption published alongside art to give credit to the artist. Credit for several pieces can be given in in a single, larger credit line. Example: "Photographs by Annie Leibovitz."
    • Crop Marks / Trim Marks
      Marks showing where printed magazine pages will be cut once bound.
    • Cutline
      A cutline is similar to a caption, but discusses the content in more detail. For the following, Scientific American could have chosen to caption the photo simply "Light Polution," but instead chose to use a cutline discussing the issue. Some magazines choose to use both captions and cutlines.
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