Student-Run Publications: Getting Started

As a student, there’s no better way to share your voice, ideas and creativity with your community than through the pages of your own publication. Having the freedom to publish content you’ve created and share it with your peers guarantees an unmatched feeling of accomplishment and pride, whether you’re a high school journalism student or Editor-in-Chief of a collegiate fashion magazine. School magazines provide an outlet for students to create and express in ways that they might not otherwise get to; student-run publishing gives students a platform.

Creating Your Own Student-Run Magazine

Of course, some schools don’t have publications already established, or maybe those that exist just aren’t your thing. It can be daunting to build a new publication from the ground up, but rest assured that your fellow students will be there to lend support all along the way.

Types of Student-Run Publications

Now that you’ve decided to create your own publication, you might be wondering exactly what it will be about: campus news? Fashion? Culture? All of the above? There’s also the question of the type of publication you want to make — a traditional broadsheet newspaper, or maybe a glossy full-color magazine? The possibilities are truly endless, and that’s part of the magic of having full reign over the content you create.

Tools for Your Student-Run Magazine

With the Issuu Story Cloud‘s suite of integrated digital publishing products, now it’s simple for young creatives to get their content seen. Create once, and share your Student-Run Magazine everywhere with Issuu. From Issuu Stories, t0 Visual Stories, Full-Screen Readers, Digital Sales and more — the possibilities for your content is endless.

Learn more about how to leverage the Issuu Story Cloud today.

Inspiration for School Magazines

To help you get started, we’ve chosen a  few of our favorite student-run publications on Issuu, from zines to newspapers and everything in between, that provide great examples of how you can format your work and highlight its contents.

Hoot Magazine

Hoot Magazine is a fashion publication from Columbia University, combining beautiful photographs and thoughtful reflections to explore culture in New York City and the fashion industry. Hoot is a great example of blending multiple topics into one publication — there’s no reason to feel like you have to focus on one subject and one subject only.

The Campanile

The Campanile is Palo Alto High School’s monthly newspaper, covering school and local news, lifestyle and sports. The Campanile features full-color illustrations and designs within a 24-page newspaper format, and branches beyond the local community to report on current events in the worlds of tech, athletics, healthcare and entertainment. Don’t shy away from newspapers for fear of them seeming “boring” — the versatility of having multiple sections allows you to cover a wide range of topics, and who doesn’t love sitting down with a cup of coffee and a newspaper in the morning?

The Eagle Eye

The Eagle Eye, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s newsmagazine, focuses on news, features, arts, editorial and sports stories that are relevant to students. From political activism to local restaurant reviews, The Eagle Eye publishes articles that cater directly to the student body and unite the school community. This newsmagazine shows how you can concentrate your publication to have a direct connection with readers, while building a dedicated following.

theLook Magazine 

Have a great publication idea but not sure how to lay things out? Check out theLook Magazine for some killer design inspiration. This fashion and lifestyle magazine from Connecticut College combines a multitude of exciting features within each issue into one gorgeous and cohesive design. Your content and the way in which you display it is very important and theLook Magazine is absolutely killing the design game.

Spoon University

Love food? Then you’ve probably heard of Spoon University, a community of young influencers covering everything food related on college campuses around the world. Founded at Northwestern University, Spoon takes one simple topic — food — and explores its many facets, whether it be recipes, tips for healthy eating at school, the best places to eat in a number of major cities and even critical advice for navigating college life, like removing greasy food stains from clothing. Spoon proves that specializing your publication in one area isn’t as limiting as it may sound, rather, it allows you to dive deep into the topic and gain readers who are just as passionate about the subject as you are.

No matter how you decide to put together your own student-run publication, there will always be plenty of readers, in both your school community and on Issuu, who love your work. So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to get publishing!

To see more school magazines that are student-run, check out our Speak Up: Student Publishing stacks!