35 Years of Defining and Designing THE BLACK COLLEGIAN - cont'd   By the end of the 1980s, the language and fashion of Black America had changed enormously -- more so, frankly, than our design. By 1989, the old Afro was looking way too dated and "square," especially as our covers increasingly began featuring more contemporary looks and stylish collegians.  Men were wearing their hair cropped shorter and shorter, while the decade favored hair-straightening and wide waves, or asymmetrical bobs among many women.     TBC was launched in an era of growing ethnic pride, whose motto, "Black is Beautiful!" was illustrated in these pages both by focusing on contributions of Black Americans, and through exploring our connections with diverse African cultures.  In part as a result of the earlier movement to rediscover and re-appreciate African roots, the prevailing intellectual and cultural trend in the late '80s was toward the more "politically correct" and ethnically hyphenated.  Many of our readers now preferred to self-define as "African Americans," and our publication evolved accordingly. This identity shift was manifested in our design both visually and verbally. We see the "Grads" figures lose definition -- gone are the clear hairlines, jewelry, and the more stylized, African art-inflected head shapes and angles.  The heads have moved toward a more abstract, silhouette style art that would be refined over the next couple of years. The magazine's tagline was changed to "The Career & Development Magazine for African-American Students," reflecting not only the new identity, but also TBC's sharpened focus on the career development needs of students and recent grads entering the job market, as well as their personal and cultural interests.     The evolution of the "Grads" figures continues. Eyebrows are removed, as are the outlines that had sculpted the face and cap of the male figure to the rear. The cover price has gone up to $3.00.     By the mid-1990s, the male and female Grads had switched places in the TBC logo, with the male's silhouette coming to the foreground.  Meanwhile, ongoing advances in digital design technology freed up our art department to stretch its creative wings.  Banished was the old single-color black background with white reversed letters. The new lettering took on depth through use of drop-shadows, by then ubiquitous in even consumer-market graphics software.  Layered backgrounds featuring colorful, textured patterns were also applied, creating a richer, more vibrant look that varied from issue to issue. The cover price went up to $4.00, where it stabilized -- and remains today.  The increased price largely reflects the rising cost of maintaining and delivering individual, personal subscriptions.  In fact, though, the magazine has been widely available -- and most often read -- for free.  It is distributed in bulk, at no cost, to careers and student services offices on college campuses. Also telling is the manner of representing publication dates.  Beginning in the mid-90s, issues are identified by "Semester" rather than by month. This indicates the degree to which the life rhythms of our student target audiences define and shape the magazine. In some years, supplemental editions identified as "Special Graduation Issues" are also published.     After 1995, anticipation of the new millennium left our designers thinking optimistically about the future. The result was the first major overhaul of our logo design since the '70s.  After years of tinkering and making incremental adjustments from issue to issue, the First Semester of 1996 saw the unveiling of a new design for the new age. Gone was the curly, bloated typeface that had been created two decades earlier. While recognizable to generations of college grads, it was too outdated for the new BLACK COLLEGIAN -- which had jumped online in 1995 to become the first national African-American magazine on the Internet.  A slimmer, more subdued (and perhaps more "corporate-looking") font was chosen.  The drop-shadows were moved to the lower left to give the lettering a sense of upward movement.  The earlier experiments with texturing backgrounds were applied to the foreground lettering, making the words really pop! Meanwhile, our two "Grads" finally settled into a comfortable look that has stuck.  They were halfway between the original, representational figures from the '70s and the vague, blobby-looking silhouettes of the early 90s.  The mortarboard graduation caps were rendered from a truer perspective so that they appeared to be fit onto the heads rather than precariously balanced atop them.  A finely detailed eyelash was restored to the female figure, while the male got a sharp double-collar.  The angles at which the Grads' heads sat, tilted just slightly backward, gave an impression that they were looking up -- both literally and figuratively.     Toward the end of the 1990s, the design emphasis was increasingly on "realistic" representations -- that is, photography-based images of "real people" in professional settings.  More literal than aesthetically interesting, the imagery of this period projected scenes from the gainful careers we wished for our student readers.  Different types of extrusion and lighting effects were also applied to the lettering, giving it a true 3D depth more realistic than the old, blocky drop-shadows.     Most recently, our fantastic cover artist, Tony O. Champagne, has brought an unprecedented level of detail and texture to TBC.  This is especially apparent in the unsettling collage depicting garbage, ruin, and construction that forms the background to our February 2006 edition -- the first to be produced after our headquarters was flooded during Hurricane Katrina. We can't wait to see what he comes up with next!