The 13th edition of Ka Nalu Ola, the literary magazine for Mid-Pacific, changed its look for the 2020 year.

“Ultimately, we decided to take a less conventional approach. This year, our staff decided that the magazine’s previously simple and clean design needed some pizazz,” said Fiona Sievert, a senior and the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine.

The magazine just published a digital edition on issuu.com and NaPueo.com and editors hope to distribute a print edition next school year.

Ka Nalu Ola consists of 75 pages full of crayon drawings, collages, poems, photographs, sketches, and stories The literary magazine is a student produced annual publication for Mid-Pacific’s students to submit art or creative writing.

“It is a creative outlook for students beyond class,” said Solana Isgar, the freshman editor.

However, this year the staff was hoping to take a step in a new direction and stray away from the traditional theme.

“What we were chasing through the course of this year was just something bolder,” said Brooke Johnson, a junior and editor. “The sort of white box museum felt that the previous magazines were too safe, in a way,” she said.

Sievert, Johnson, and Isgar are amongst four other student editors: Senior Isabella Miki, Senior Morgan Groves, and Junior Griffin Au. Together, they face all of their struggles and successes, said Sievert.

We call the shots collectively as a team, said Sievert.

“The fact that we were doing something the magazine had never done before was a struggle on its own,” said Johnson. She said it was risky and no one knew how it was going to be received when published.

“There was always the possibility that the magazine had stayed a certain way for a reason,” said Johnson.

This year, editors decided on a “punk rock, zine aesthetic.” The goal was a complicated, but cohesive design that hopes to attract more student readers.

“I hope to see more variety of student submissions and we want to make it so there is an abundance of people submitting and not just a couple,” said Isgar.

They also planned to reduce the production cost per magazine so that there would be more prints. However, due to COVID-19, the edition is exclusively online for now.

“I also think the magazine as a whole was a total success, I couldn’t be more proud of what we —and in a way everyone who submitted work —created,” said Johnson.

Next year, Sievert hopes to return to see students with their very own copy of the Ka Nalu Ola.

“Our team is always incredibly passionate about the magazine. I consider this enthusiasm the driving force behind our achievements and thus also a success in its own right,” said Sievert.