Every semester, students have the opportunity to take a magazine production class, where they are put on the staff of Hofstra’s Pulse magazine. A new issue comes out at the end of each semester, and students enrolled in the class are given the enormous task of creating the magazine from start to finish.
The staff is responsible for coming up with a theme for the issue, assigning and writing stories on the topic, completing the layout with their articles and advertisements, and sending it to a printer.
Taking this class requires a lot of time and dedication. However, it is extremely rewarding, as those who have taken the class have the unique experience of being immersed in the magazine world.
For this semester’s issue, the theme is “Do It Yourself,” which is a great representation of the class itself. I have the pleasure of being part of the design and layout team, and for the past week and a half, we have been shooting cover ideas. The pictures in this post are behind-the-scenes shots of what it’s like to work on a cover for a magazine, which takes a lot of planning, compromising, and effort.
Between the photography editor and myself, there must have been around 100 pictures taken of our model for the “Rosie The Riveter” shoot to capture her every position, in hopes of getting the perfect expression and posture.
A second cover concept involved us painting the hand of our very gracious art director, with the idea behind it being “Getting Your Hands Dirty.” That shoot proved to be incredibly difficult as we attempted to find the perfect background and lighting to really make the paint colors pop.
Overall, we had a lot of fun shooting our covers, and are now faced with the difficult decision of choosing a favorite among the staff and making it into a magazine-worthy complete cover.
What idea did we go with? Well, you’ll just have to pick up your copy of Pulse the week before finals to find out.