I’m seeing right down the barrel of InDesign already, even though adulthood is in my peripheral vision. With a new year comes a new focus, and I couldn’t be more excited about taking the sole leadership in Élan’s Layout and Design editorial position. I wouldn’t feel as ready as I do now to fight the computer’s quirks and glitches, without the life lessons I learned from my former lead editor, Emily Leitch. I’m waiting to receive a successor of my own to continue the lovely tradition of “layout lessons.” It’s the feature that brings this staff together over the painstaking, sophisticated masterpiece that is Élan.
Last year, right at the final stage of the yearly print edition – the very last day of school – we lost our computer just as we hit save. It was probably the most tragic thing to ever happen all year. That computer was a real dinosaur, I’m sure you’ve seen one half its age at most. There’s no telling how much blood was shed from the nail biting minutes of anxious saving, how many tears fell from the disparity of a frozen screen, or the sweat drops that rolled down the furrowed ‘brow of the crazy-eyed perfectionist. That computer was the diabetic heartbeat of Élan for the first year of true continuity.
It will be greatly missed.
But this year, as I walk into the classroom empty handed, I am fully minded. I am going to do everything I know how to do to continue making our publication carry the inspirational individuality and professional beauty that our breathtaking art and writing are worthy of.
I’m here to show the world that Élan is not just an impressive magazine made in the corner of a library after school, but a true representation of the merit brilliant teenage artists deserve.
-Taylor Austell, Layout and Design Editor