Lapin Ylioppilaslehti magazine was a magazine from students to students who were interested in relevant events in society and the university. There was a lot of variation in the topics, which I wanted to convey also in the illustrations.

I made several illustrations for essays and a cover, as well as a one-page article of my own.

Kääriäinen’s essay depicted ideas of the relationships between people, nature and consumption from a philosophical standpoint, so I went for a slightly surrealistic feel for the illustration. Light colours balanced the heaviness of the topic and handmade brush strokes made it seem more approachable and reminded of people’s part in all of it.

The cover illustration was for an issue released in the fall when new students roll in. I asked the chief editor what themes were going to be prevalent, since I wanted the illustration to cover them as well as possible. Key themes were community, points of view, technology and the university itself, which is how I ended up with a recording screen and in it a circle of humanoid characters all looking from their points of view the tree of knowledge, aka the university and all the different fruits it grows in different directions.

For an essay about trending girl aesthetics and consumerism I chose modern vector style illustration and pink tones. The main claims in the essay were that one must have money to be able to follow trends and that fashion trends often target girls, so in the illustration I placed a girl in the traditional place of an older man’s head on bills. The surrounding imagery depicts global influence and means of validation.

For all the illustrations I delivered a sketch of my idea for approval before proceeding to finalizing. Everyone expressed excitement for my visions and were very happy with how they turned out. I was also really happy to try different styles to complement the texts and encapsulate the core of the thoughts and ideas.