Seven-year-old Dylan Allman from Llangwm has scored a massive victory being crowned the winner of The Big Issue's national competition to design the magazine's Christmas cover. This edition of The Big Issue will be sold across all of Britain this week.

Dylan triumphed over hundreds of other entrants from all over the UK. The competition, organised by The Big Issue with help from kid's newspaper First News, was the first time The Big Issue had ever looked to run a reader-created cover. It was open to budding artists of 16 and under.

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 struck 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."

The other entrants won't go uncelebrated, however. A gallery of as many of the best of the rest as can be accommodated will run in The Big Issue magazine this week. They will appear on The Big Issue site and in First News.

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."

The creative seven-year-old also said he wanted to make his local vendor smile.

The award-winning Big Issue is sold across Britain 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. The magazine comes out every week.