A JUNIOR artist from Pembrokeshire has beaten competition from around the UK to design the Christmas cover of the Big Issue magazine.

The competition, which was open to budding artists aged 16 or under, was won by seven-year-old Dylan Allman, from Llangwm, with his reindeer design.

Lorraine Allman, Dylan’s delighted mum said: “I was so proud when I learnt that Dylan’s picture had been chosen. It’s a real boost to his confidence that he’s won.”

Dylan said the idea behind the cover came when he wondered “how a reindeer could hold a copy of the Big Issue because he wouldn’t have any hands so I thought my hands could be his antlers so he could hold it”.

Dylan said he also wanted to make his local Big Issue seller smile.

The Big Issue’s UK editor Paul McNamee said: “We had hundreds of entries and it took a lot of difficult deliberation to settle on just one. We were stuck by the volume and quality of what arrived through it the door. It was tough, but in the end Dylan’s reindeer just knocked our socks off”.

Dylan triumphed over hundreds of other entrants to win the front-page prize.

The competition, organised by The Big Issue with help from kid’s newspaper First News, was the first time the weekly title has run a reader-created cover, and the issue will be sold across the UK this week.

The Big Issue is sold by more than 2,000 vendors who are either homeless, don’t have a permanent home of their own or are at risk of losing their home.

They buy copies of the magazine for £1.25 and sell them for £2.50 – keeping £1.25 for every copy they sell.

The Christmas edition costs £3 (vendors purchase it for £1.50) putting some extra revenue into their pockets at this time of year.