The Fall issue of the IU Alumni Magazine is printed and mailed, and we hope by now you’ve dug into our latest effort to “share the spirit of IU.” With this post, we wanted to give you—our most loyal and engaged members and volunteers—a behind-the-scenes view of the magazine’s production.

There’s an old saying in magazine work: If you put sports on the cover, you’ve got to put a cat in the table of contents and a dog on the last page of the magazine. Check, check, and check with the Fall issue of the IU Alumni Magazine.

Let’s start with the cover. As the magazine’s art director, Kelly Carnahan, developed the concept of “Hoosiers Rise Again,” it was clear that a single panel couldn’t hold the renewed passion around Hoosier athletics. Voila! The idea of a three-panel fold-out cover is born (a first for the IUAM, we think). We pitched the idea to Hoosier Athletics Director Fred Glass, and he put the entire Athletics Department at our disposal. The magazine’s executive editor, Mike Wright, took it from there, corralling the people you see on the cover—including Fred, who you’ll see boosted up on panel three—for a day of shooting at the Mellencamp Pavilion. Check out Blueline’s video of the photo shoot.

Some other cover details: It took a lot of Photoshopping to create what one staffer called the “Hoosier Fan’s Fantasy Land.” We didn’t have to Photoshop the enthusiasm and spirit—and the photograph of the basketball scoreboard is real, too. Do you recognize it? It was taken right after the Hoosiers downed the Wildcats in December 2011. Still get chills!

Back to the cats and dogs. We made up that magazine saying in the second paragraph, of course. But nonetheless look for the much-celebrated cat Lil Bub and his owner, alum Mike Bridavsky, on page 4 (and page 50), and then Penny the dog, owned by the IUAA’s Hannah Carroll, on page 64. Check out page 48, too, where you’ll find a cool story about Luke Bielawski, a McKinney Law School student at IUPUI who spent his summer golfing across the country. The twists: He did it for charity, and he didn’t play on golf courses.

Don’t have your print magazine with you? Take a look at the magazine online, and you’ll find a “flip book” version, which gives you an interactive replica of the print piece. Also online: See and hear the beautiful new pipe organ in the renovated Alumni Hall. Maybe you were there at the Alumni Leaders Conference in June. Ceiling is gorgeous, right?

Enjoy the magazine, and thanks for your continued loyalty to IU!

JD Denny, Manager, Editorial Services, Alumni Marketing