by Madeline Best photos by Meghan Lewis

Just as the Dart and Teresian are traditional STA publications, so is Windmoor literary magazine. For those of you who might not know, Windmoor is a magazine devoted to the art of STA students; whether it be photography, poems, art or writing. Unlike the Dart, this magazine comes out only once a year in May. The magazine is completely designed by student staff members who apply to be on staff at the beginning of the school year.

Every issue of Windmoor has a unique theme that can be seen throughout the design of the magazine. Before staff members can start designing, the editors typically hold brainstorming sessions to come up with that year’s theme.

“Usually the editors come up with their basic idea for the magazine and have a meeting with the advisor. This year, Sibel [Alpakin] and I talked and then told Ms. Hamilton about our vision for the book, the design elements and color schemes we wanted to use,” senior and Windmoor editor Lena White said.

Once the theme is created, the editor’s talk to their fellow staff members about ideas for potential page layouts, fonts and color schemes. But, before designing can start, the staff members of Windmoor must first encourage the students of STA to submit their art, which can sometimes prove to be a difficult task.

“It’s much more difficult than you would think, especially at such a small school. Some artists are busy, and forget to submit. Some people are shy, and chicken out. Some people don’t think their art is good enough and some people make amazing things in a class but don’t even think to submit them because they don’t consider themselves ‘artistic’,” White said.

Staff members encourage submissions by reaching out to artistic students, talking to art and english teachers, making announcements over the intercom and placing posters around the school. This year’s posters were designed by Windmoor staff member Shelby Hawkins.

Once all the student art is submitted, editors Lena White and Sibel Alpakin must narrow down what is submitted in order to create page layouts.

“We wanted to include as wide a variety of artists and types of art as we could, but both Lena and I are opinionated people so it could be hard to agree on what to use and not use,” Alpakin said.

In order to design pages for Windmoor, staff members use the computer programs InDesign and Photoshop. Because there are no prerequisites to being on staff, many of the girls don’t have a background in computer layout and design. Computer teacher and Windmoor advisor Jillian Hamilton holds informational sessions for staff members to come to before designing takes place in order to learn the basics of using these computer applications.

“A lot [of the girls] don’t know how to use InDesign so we’ll do a couple of months where during our meetings we will learn the ins and outs of InDesign. The girls really help each other out a lot with figuring things out too,” Hamilton said.

Windmoor encourages all students to submit application for staff and enjoys having different student’s perspectives on ideas for the magazine. When asked why she decided to join, junior Libby Torres had this to say.

“I decided to join staff because I wanted to see what working on a literary magazine would be like. Also because I knew it would look good on college applications. My favorite thing about being on staff is probably seeing all of the great art, prose, poetry and writing that everyone at STA had submitted,” Torres said.

This year’s issue of Windmoor magazine promises great art and deals with negative space through it’s design.

“I think that this year’s magazine is going to be something special. I’m so proud of it. Actually, as Windmoor staff and everyone who knows me is aware, I’m completely obsessed with it. We tried to include a variety of students from every grade, and I hope that everyone finds something they love in it,” White said.

Look out for this year’s issue and remember to congratulate all of STA’s amazing artists featured in this year’s magazine.