State natural resource magazines' tremendous potential as information sources and their unique economic situation led to this study of space utilization in individual issues. Three issues from each of 40 state magazines published in the summer of 1977 were divided into five subscription-rate and four staff-size categories. Category averages for each layout element were compared based on per issue percentages of space devoted to each element. Percentage computations were based on the total space potentially available for text. Three questions were posed: Do magazines with higher subscription rates have a lower percentage of text per issue than lower-rate magazines? Do subscription rates relate to the proportional amount of space taken by photography and artwork? and How does staff size relate to the use of photography and artwork? The results show: (1) the magazines with the highest subscription rates use less text space per issue than those with lower rates; (2) as subscription rates increase, there is a larger percentage of photography and artwork space used per issue; (3) a significant difference in the percentage of white space occurs among the subscription categories; and (4) magazines with large staffs allocate significantly more space per issue to artwork than magazines with smaller staffs. (FL)