The student-run art magazine, Candid, is planned to release at the end of the Fall 2022 semester. Candid is an art-feature magazine run by students in the art department on campus. 

Ashley Staib, Editor-in-Chief of Candid, described the magazine as an outlet where students can express their thoughts and opinions in creative ways.

“Mostly, it’s like opinion-based articles,” Staib said. “Then illustrators or photographers will create imagery that goes with that article to help represent the point in an artistic way.”

Members of Candid said they started the magazine to bring a different media source to campus. 

“So last summer, I was approached by a student about doing a magazine that would be more of a fashion art magazine with the idea that it would be in sense,” said Robert Dickes, assistant professor of photography and digital imaging. “Something different than what we currently have at the university with our news.”

“Nathaniel Tang basically came up with this idea, and it was kind of impressive for him to do that, get it started on his own,” Staib said.

Unfortunately, The Shield was unable to contact Tang for comment.

Dickes said Candid faced problems in the past with getting issues out by the end of the semester. They are hoping this semester will present less problems for them.

Dickes also said the goal for Candid is to become a university organization like The Shield. He said they want to have a permanent funding source and space. “It gets really hard because we don’t have a centralized space and office that they can always go back to,” he said.

As the creator of Candid, Nathaniel Tang was the original editor-in-chief. Once he left, he passed the position down to Staib. 

As the new editor-in-chief, Staib said she is trying to encourage the staff to pace out their work more instead of trying to get everything done all at once.

“With the visual assignments, we’d have a deadline to where you give rough sketches of your ideas, so we know they’ll at least do that. And then, by another day, they’ll have a rough draft of their visual element. And then another date, they’ll have it fully done” Staib said.

“We have a lot of people helping out,” Staib said. “We’re getting the articles in, and everybody’s on pace.”

Dickes said another issue Candid has had with releasing an issue at the end of every semester is the printing process. In the past, printing has even taken place out of the country.

“The last one actually came out of Canada; the time before that was out of Chicago,” Dickes said. “It’s a Chicago slash English-based company, and it just takes a little bit longer if we tried to print it here. In town or somewhere locally, we’d be paying three times the price. So we just couldn’t afford to do that and give away a free magazine.”

Dickes said, “The key for us and our issue is printing. So if things are working properly, our goal is always to have it out the last week of classes or finals week. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet. We keep moving our deadlines earlier because we keep thinking printing’s not going to take as long as it does.”

Dickes said the best place to get an issue of Candid is in the Arts Center in the front office or upstairs near the photo lab. He also said there are spots in the Liberal Arts building where students can get an issue.

Lexi Reed, junior communication studies and journalism major, said everyone who works at Candid are fun and kind people to be around, and she encourages students to check out the magazine.

She said, “Other students should read Candid because the art and stories are phenomenal. The creativity and execution in the previous two issues were amazing. The visuals are so aesthetically pleasing, beautifully executed, and the articles to go along are impactful, important and interesting messages. It’s so easy to read, plus it’s always fun to see some familiar faces in a publication like that.”

Staib said she hopes  Candid will be able to reach a wider audience in the future and become a permanent source at USI.

Staib said, “I’m hoping it can become a permanent fixture on campus and become more known. And kind of become a legacy thing where I can see students who go here and in like ten years Candid is still running and they’re still creating issues.”