YEARBOOK
I spent three years as the head editor of the Elma High School Yearbook. This class is what introduced me to both design and communication and began a life long passion. The position of yearbook editor was my first experience directing a team to meet a common goal. I learned a lot from this experience, most importantly how to work with Photoshop, meet strict deadlines, write and edit text, and communicate as a group to achieve a common goal.
This page features some of the projects and pages from my time as yearbook editor.
The first project I want to introduce is this logo on the left. This design was adapted from another logo my senior year to be used in the yearbook as filler. It ended up being popular with school administration and appeared everywhere the following years. This logo can still be found on banners, brochures, flags, t-shirts and hats throughout Elma, Washington!
This book is from my first time as yearbook editor. We faced many challenges that year including switching design programs, advisors, editing staff and classrooms. I worked closely with the new yearbook advisor to reinvent and rejuvenate the book to create interest and increase sales. The theme that year was, "Color Me Blue". The idea was to have one photo per page black and white with color select royal blue.
With blue and white being our school colors we wanted to focus on emphasizing the cohesive "blue and white" that brought us all together as a community. The pages were collectively designed by the yearbook staff, each using a thick blue line to bring the designs together.
The advisor and I worked together a lot in this book designing pages, writing and editing text and editing photos. Some of the pages I was responsible for are featured to the right.
The theme for this next book is, "A lot like nothing else". I chose this theme after attending a few different events that held workshops and allowed me to flip through books from other schools for inspiration. This opportunity opened my eyes to the possibilities of what we could create. I was a lot more hands on with this book and designed a majority of the pages. The goal was to get every student featured in the book at least three times, an 'inclusion revolution' if you will. This was a challenge for sure, but we used design elements like the page number cut outs and collages at the bottom of each page to get more student involvement. This cover was also designed and photographed by me. This year I also designed the senior bio section at the end of the book. This is where all the seniors fill out a survey and get to submit their own photo to be featured instead of their school photo. It was challenging getting everyone to submit their information and making sure that every entry is the same format.
At the end of the book parents, students and local companies can purchase advertisement space typically used to congratulate graduates. I worked closely with several parents to design what they had envisioned. These ads create revenue that is used to produce the yearbook the following school year.
The theme of this last book is, "Elma as we know it". This book used modular design in an attempt to capture every student three times. It helped us fill the pages with more content and focus on text more than just photos. We also decided to include a section for each teacher and what classes they had that year. Taking photos in the classrooms was a challenge, and we struggled to make these pages compelling. At the end of the day the teachers used the extra space as autograph room!
This yearbook featured data from a significant amount of student surveying, this was another idea on how to get more students included in the book. I spent a lot more time creating text and doing editing work than I did building pages this year. The goal was to take on the editor role more seriously and share what I know with the students of the class so they can create themselves.
The pages I designed and photographed are featured in the gallery to the right.
