Here are a few fun facts about The College Artist magazine!
1. It All Started in My Mass Comm Class: During the Spring semester of my Freshman year of college, I took a class called Mass Communications. This class mainly focused on the history of the biggest types of mass communication (radio, television, movies, newspapers, etc). During one lecture, my professor lead a discussion about magazines. He started talking about how magazines are mainly specialized now, and that they usually focus on one topic. I thought it would be a fun idea to create my own magazine, so I did a google search and found a website called Blurb that allows people to publish their own magazines. At first I was just playing around, but I quickly became passionate about what I was creating, and I began to try to make the most quality art magazine that I could. About a month and a half later, the Spring 2018 issue was released. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the beginning of one of my favorite projects that I’ve ever done, and I strive to try and make sure that every new issue is better than the ones that came before it. Just between the Spring and Summer 2018 issues, you can see an improvement in overall layout, spelling, and photo quality. Although it doesn’t seem that anyone else is as excited about my magazine as I am, I hope to become an author someday so I figure that I should get used to pouring my heart into a work of writing without knowing for sure if anyone will love it as much as I do. Hopefully, someday I do create something that many people truly enjoy.
2. The Girl on the Spring 2018 Cover is My Housemate: When I was originally figuring out how I wanted my magazine to look, I initially just had a stock photo of a random girl for the cover:
I wanted this magazine to feel like my own though, so I decided that I would ask my friend Clara to model for the cover. Clara and I are actually renting a house together this school year with a few of our other friends. Here are a few never-before-seen photos that could have been used for the cover:
3. I Drew the Art on the Cover: Before the photo shoot with Clara, I went to the location, Phipp’s Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and took photos of some flowers I thought would look good on the cover. I then made a few drawings using the photos I took as a reference and went back a few days later with Clara. This was the reference photo for the drawing that is featured on the cover:
4. Cut Pages: Here is a special look at four pages that were cut from the magazine before it was published:
5. The Font for the Logo and Cover Title is Called Damn Noisy Kids:
6. It Isn’t ALL Just Me: My friend Wesley (who appears on the Summer 2018 cover) helps me with a final grammar and spelling check, but I don’t think that he does a good enough job to be listed as an editor on the last page. Sorry buddy.
7. I Don’t Make Any Profit: Although a physical copy of the magazine does cost money, the cost of that all goes towards manufacturing. I could give myself a profit margin, but I want my magazine to be available to everyone for free anyway, so it doesn’t matter to me whether or not I make any money. Each magazine is available for free if you click the ‘preview’ button on the product page. If you would like to support me, you can always check out my Redbubble page.