Best way to store/retrieve content??

I'm writing some content management scripts for an online magazine. Many articles are formatted in a similar way, but some have a unique page layout that includes grids of photos, tables, etc. I'm not sure if the best way to store content is in a database so it can be flowed into an article template, or to simply lay out the page as HTML, surrounding it with a simple include("header.php") and include("footer.php") for header/footer HTML and graphics. For articles that require things like tables, it would be a pain to have to write this HTML by hand or lay it out in Dreamweaver then copy and past the code into the database field (using an Admin web form). Or, is it prudent to set up a custom table in the databse for each type of content so that a matching template can be used to format the pages properly without having to include all the HTML in the database with the content itself? Hope this makes some sense. Just trying to figure out the best way to tackle this. All input is appreciated! Monty