Treering Blog

When it comes time to prep a recipe, outfit, dinner party, or even yearbook, Pinterest is the go-to place to receive inspiration. (We get it, this blog is a close second.) Yearbook theme ideas on Pinterest provide inspiration for elementary yearbook coordinators, middle school clubbers, and high school editors alike, but how many can you drop into your book right away? Spoiler: Treering has over 300.

From idea pin to yearbook pages

Groovy, one of our new elementary yearbook themes for 2022-2023 is one of our top saved posts on Pinterest. To apply this, or any other pin-worthy theme, log in to your Treering account and click "edit yearbook" on the dashboard. From there,

• Set your styles and theme
• Select a layout or create your own
  • Import and add your own photos to pages
  • Access shared photos from your school community
  • Add your own text or use one of the overlays to pages
  • Add theme graphics to pages
  • Add or change the page background
• Autoflow your portrait pages

With 15 fully editable layouts for club, classroom, and event coverage, filling pages with memories is as simple as dragging and dropping. Coordinate portrait pages, specialty coverage, and recognition ads with 40 included backgrounds and 150 graphic elements.

‍

This upper page was created using Groovy's built-in theme graphics. Using the lowercase letters from the collection, this idea came to life with a few clicks of the align tool. We love interactive pages because they are one more way students can make their yearbooks their own. Also, these are especially fun over which to reminisce in the years to come. On the right side of the spread, there is room for a photo collage of classroom celebrations or even teachers' favorite dishes.  

And if you're on the hunt for high school inspiration, tech seems to trend.

When anyone first steps into the world of yearbooks, it can feel like learning a new language. Terms like "gutter," "bleed," "spread," and "copy" have specific meanings that may be different from everyday language. Understanding this unique vocabulary is part of the journey. We hope that after your read this you can speak yearbook fluently.

What are the basics for yearbook creation?

To borrow from classical education, the grammar stage is the first step in learning any subject. It focuses on mastering foundational knowledge and vocabulary so we can eventually progress to more complex tasks. During this stage, the focus is on memorizing terms and concepts, recognizing patterns, and building an understanding of a subject’s basic structure.

In the context of yearbook creation, this foundational knowledge helps you communicate effectively with students, your publisher, and fellow volunteers. 

Step 1: learn the key terms and concepts

Just as you would start learning a new language by building vocabulary, learning yearbook terminology is your first step. Here are some essential terms to get you started:

• Bleed: extra space around your page that is intentionally printed, then trimmed by the printer. The standard bleed size is 1/8 inch, and is usually used to allow for movement the paper during printing.
• Copy: the content of an article or news element. (Basically, it’s the words used to tell a story.)
• Ladder: a chart that represents the pages in a yearbook. It can be helpful when planning section placement and page content.
• Gutter: the space between two facing pages (an important place to keep clear because, when a yearbook is bound, the space between the pages shrinks). It’s best to apply a 1/2 inch margin to both sides of the gutter, or 1 inch in total.
• Spread: two pages that face each other in a yearbook.

If you’re craving more or want to quiz your yearbook class or club, check out Teaching Yearbook: 24 Yearbook Terms. We even built you a Google Form to test their knowledge!

Step 2: recognize the patterns

Certain patterns and conventions are used repeatedly. Understanding these patterns can be helpful when organizing content or working with the team on visual elements. Here are a few patterns to look out for:

• Sections: Yearbooks are typically divided into People, Student Life, Organizations, Sports, Academics, and Reference. This pattern helps create a natural structure that tells the school’s story.
• Design Hierarchy: Pages are often designed with a visual hierarchy, placing the most important elements—like headlines and main photos—at the top or center. Everything should be built from there.
• Themes: Each yearbook has an overarching theme that shapes its design, colors, and tone. Applying theme elements across spreads will help you stay consistent and focused on the story you’re telling.

Step 3: practice and apply

The final part of the grammar stage is applying your knowledge. Start by using these terms and patterns as you work with other volunteers and students. For instance, if you’re helping with a layout, use terms like “spread” and “gutter” when discussing the design. Practicing the vocabulary helps reinforce your understanding and builds confidence. Our favorite review activity is below.

‍

Mastering the basics to move forward

By building a solid foundation in yearbook terminology and structure, you’ll increase your comfort level with the language of yearbook creation, allowing you to collaborate and contribute meaningfully to the project. The next step is to level up to more advanced stages of yearbook production, perhaps by trying modular design or a chronological yearbook.

People often ask about the process behind creating yearbook themes—how we come up with ideas, what inspires the designs, and what steps go into making them both creative and versatile. To help answer those questions, I’ve gathered the most common ones I hear, along with insights into how we approach theme development.

– Allison Vecchio, Design Director

– Ashlyn Wong, Associate Graphic Designer

Q: What’s the first step you take when creating a theme for a yearbook?

Allison: The very first step is listening. We start with focus groups, inviting editors and advisers to react to early design inspiration and share what excites them. That feedback becomes ourcompass—it points us toward where to explore next. From there, the design team dives into inspiration.

Q: Where do you look for inspiration?

Allison: Inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere—online platforms like Pinterest and Designspiration, opening credits in films and series, the type treatments on city signage, or the latest work from leading agencies like Pentagram. We also keep a close eye on current graphic design trends. Those pieces come together in a mood board, much like a collection of magazine tears, so we can see the direction starting to take shape. We cast a wide net at first, then refine and narrow down as we go.

One of the biggest themes actually came directly from our users during a focus group. The Gallery theme idea originated in a focus group session where a few customers described looking through a yearbook as feeling like walking through a gallery.

And, the idea for Gallery was born!

My most recent spark came during a trip to Madrid, where I visited the Museo del Prado, and the Museo Reina Sofía. My creative mind expanded tenfold viewing works by the old masters whom I studied years ago, such as Caravaggio, El Greco, Fra Angelico, and Heironymus Bosch.

Q: How do you decide what to design?  

‍Allison: Our process is customer-focused and data-driven. After running focus groups, we analyze the usage data in our application to see which themes are trending across schools. We combine that with customer feedback to understand why something resonates. Once we have that insight, the design team begins exploring themes that can work across different grade levels and schools.

Many questions come into play when we think about what to design. Does the theme make sense for all genders? Will it look too feminine, or too masculine? How can we achieve a healthy balance? Is this primarily for an elementary school, or could it be designed in a manner to apply to all grade levels?

Q: How do you choose your color palette and typography to match the theme?

Ashlyn: Color and typography decisions always begin with exploration and testing. We build out several palette and type combinations, then test them — dropping them into sample spreads, pairing them with backgrounds, and checking legibility. We look at how bold or neutral tones interact with student photography, and we make adjustments based on feedback from internal collaboration. It’s a cycle of experimenting, testing, and refining until the theme feels balanced and cohesive.

Q: How do you create the artwork?

Allison: In our focus groups, customers told us they wanted the same collection of graphics across every theme. We set out to do this by working with illustrators to create bespoke artwork. Finding the right illustrator takes time. We review portfolios until we find one whose aesthetic aligns with the concept. For example, with the Gallery theme, we partnered with illustrator Ekaterina, whose warm, approachable style was a perfect fit. She created more than 100 illustrations that together gave the theme the feeling of walking through a gallery.

Q: Which past theme are you most proud of and why?

Ashlyn: The focus groups revealed that records and decades were popular, and we really wanted to give our users a full, cohesive theme that could synthesize these concepts. For the Record stands out because it challenged us to unify five distinct decades into one cohesive theme. Although we hit roadblocks and had to pivot several times, the final product was something fun, flexible, and unique. I’m proud of the way our team was able to not only fulfill our customers’ requests despite challenges, but problem-solve to create something revolutionary.

‍Allison: The themes that stand out most for me are the ones I see schools using again and again. Dream Big is one that always gives me the feels. It carries the charm of a children’s book, with richly illustrative backgrounds I created in Photoshop. Small details—a child holding a kite or soaring into the sky—symbolize limitless potential, inspiring students with the idea that they can achieve anything they set their minds to.

Treering Yearbook Heroes is a monthly feature focusing on yearbook tips and tricks.

Financial constraints in college led Yearbook Hero Justin Warren to a warehouse job where he unexpectedly began a career pathway in a print shop, eventually becoming the operations manager. Rooted in his love of learning, his passion for innovation, and challenging industry standards, he moved from the print floor to directing Treering Yearbooks’ domestic, coast-to-coast print network. Early this year, Justin worked with cross-functional teams to introduce tactile elements through the Treering Heritage Collection. 

How do you respond when people tell you print is obsolete?

I’ve been told that my whole career. Something physical in someone’s hand is so valuable, even though it may sit on a shelf for a bit. It’s so much easier to pull it off the shelf to relive the memories in a beautiful, full-color book than it is to dig through your phone and find a photo you think you took seven years ago.

It’s morphed, definitely, and that’s the great thing about Treering: we’re innovators. We anticipate what the future brings while maintaining that physical connection to our memories.

Speaking of physical connection, what inspired the development of studio-designed, textured yearbook covers?

Touch is a huge component of child development. You remember something you can touch. 

One of my biggest “brings” to the company was to bring a more tactile element to our printed yearbooks. It really does bring a new dynamic. Texture has always done super well in print and is difficult to implement. I said, "We're doing this," and collaborated with our print network to create a thick, glossy polymer that extends to the end of the cover and the spine, of which we are proud. The Heritage Collection showcases the possibilities that we have in front of us. All it takes is great development and some research before we execute.

People ask all the time how we manage to have a three-week turnaround. What makes it possible?

It takes a lot of strategy. It takes a lot of preparation. It takes a lot of commitment in order to turn a digital file into a printed file, and it really comes down efficiencies. Being digital, we reduce waste and errors. If there is a problem, we can catch it immediately. We don’t have to remake or rehang plates to do a full run.

We're not going to store any inventory or print extras. Print on demand allows us to personalize and print your custom yearbook as the order comes in. That takes time. Real people look at the yearbooks (it’s not all automated) to check for quality.

Our printing network is coast-to-coast, so we are geographically positioned to service our schools with shorter transit times and increased flexibility. We are striving to be both eco-friendly and economically friendly to pass on savings to schools.

What other innovations set Treering apart?

Personalization, it’s what our thing is. Personalizations changed the world. When I first heard about it, frankly wasn't sure how, on the production side, I was going to produce it. It brought challenges and through discussions and brainstorming, we came up with a product that we can then continue to enhance. 

Portrait autoflow is another. Treering utilizes technology to solve an old school problem and be able to bring our little twist to it. Without revealing too much, this is just the beginning.

Rumor has it, that you’re also a master brewer.

My dad and I own it together. We both have full-time careers, but after work, we do sales calls and on the weekends we brew beer. No advertising. It's just literally dad and I all the way from ops to janitor. We have 30 recipes that we rotate we keep five or six going year-round. Living in the Pacific Northwest, IPAs really are the huge driver: really bitter, really floral. Those are the king of beers over here. So we have quite a few of those. We just pick and choose what we're feeling and what our customers want. I mean it's a wonderful experience and it's taught me a lot about smaller companies because I've lived in the corporate world for so long that I get to see the smaller craft of a business. It keeps me out of trouble.

Treering Yearbook Heroes is a monthly feature focusing on yearbook tips and tricks.

Meet the man who created Treering's new color picker. Engineer Nick Pasto grew up among cherry, walnut, and apple growers in Stockton, CA. In addition to his swoon-worthy homemade lasagna (yes, Pasto makes pasta) inspired by his time studying cuisine with Italian grandmas, Nick led the teams which developed many of Treering's other editor favorites:

• Recognition ads
• Spell check
• Marking pages "done"
• Polls
• Language support for Arabic, Chinese, and Hebrew characters
• Alignment tools
• Package tracking improvements

(This is not an exhaustive list by any means.)

How did you move from the classroom to the backroom?

Back then, Treering’s design software was Flash-based, and that was going out. I saw a message that they were looking for developers to change it to HTML5. The opportunity spoke to me because there was a lot of overlap between my professional career and personal interests.

While earning my art education degree, I worked as a graphic designer and animator for my college. I’ve also been an indie game developer.

[Editor's note: Nick made Super Chibi Knight with his eight-year-old daughter who served as the voice actor for the main character; she's now 18.]

How does your background as a classroom teacher make you a better developer?

So many people who work at Treering are currently making yearbooks at their kids’ schools. I’m one of the only engineers who’s served as an adviser. It helps to have real-world experience with our product because I can see it from both sides.

The leadership at Treering looks for a breadth of experience to remain customer-focused and make the best product. The strength of our team is our diversity–our experiences help with ingenuity and problem-solving.

We build in a ton of automation and templates to make things less intimidating. You don’t have to know Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign to do desktop publishing for your yearbook design. Treering’s software is the bridge. 

If you could tell our editors anything, what would it be?

The most impressive part of Treering as a user is the customer service.

Like many first-time advisers, I missed our deadline. The pressure of making sure kids had their books before summer was stressful. As a new teacher, it was too much on my plate.

I picked up the phone and just communicated with the CAT team and they helped me work it out by using my fundraiser to pay for expedited shipping. My students received their books on time, and I determined this is a company I am interested in learning more about. It was then I knew I wanted to work here.

People put a lot of thought into naming their children (and even their pets). Well, this yearbook is your baby, so you want to give it a name that lives up to its content. We’ve put together some tips for how to get the brain juices flowing when it comes to choosing your title, and also some great title ideas we’ve come across over the years.

Set some guardrails

The number of yearbook title ideas rivals the number of fish in the sea, so it helps to narrow your sights before you cast the net. One thing that helps is to pull the yearbooks from the last five years and take note of their titles.

You should also decide on the tone. Some like yearbook titles to be inspirational, while others like to provide a nod to the overall theme. And for some, being straightforward works best. Regardless, it’s helpful to set the scene in your mind so you can measure your options against your expectations.

Different approaches to yearbook titles

There are a few different routes to take when pursuing a title:

• Tie it to your School. You can use the school’s name, colors, mascot, or location as a jumping off point.
• Time-Specific Title. Make a reference to this current point in time, by calling out the year, referencing a sign of the times like sustainability or social media, or by using a current song lyric or movie quote.
• Timeless Titles. These ideas capture the overall intention of a yearbook by speaking to nostalgia, memories, and the passage of time.

Whether you build on your school’s spirit or pay tribute to the collection of memories within, your yearbook’s title should capture the essence of your book and give the reader a sense of the journey to come. Select a few ideas and try them on for size. Share them with your committee and gather some feedback. After you let them marinate, you’ll find that one perfect idea, and it will practically jump onto the cover itself.

Yearbook title ideas

Interested in a few examples? We’ve compiled several options from the types of covers mentioned above. Feel free to poke around, and take whatever inspiration this list offers.

School-Inspired: Mascots

• The Year of the {School Mascot}
• The Shine of the {School Mascot}
• From the {School Mascot}’s Den
• The Eye of the {School Mascot}
• This is {School Mascot}Country
• {School Mascot} Territory
• {School Mascot} Pride
• In Our Hearts | On Our Sleeves
• Peace Love & {School Mascot}
• Keep Calm & {School Mascot} On

School-Inspired: Colors

• {School Color} Memories
• Seasons of {School Color}
• Seeing {School Color}
• A Splash Of {School Color}
• Better In {School Color}
• In Color
• Color Commentary
• Showing Our True Colors
• Showing Off Our Colors
• {School Name} In Color
• Life In {School Color}
• These Colors Don't Run
• More Colorful Together
• In Living Color

School-Inspired: Location

• From the Heart of the Rockies
• From the Desk of {School Name}
• {School Name} Presents…
• United States of {School Name}
• {School Name} Is Buzzing
• If These Walls Could Talk
• The Writing On The Wall
• Inside {School Name}

Time-Specific: The Year

• 202X Voices
• We Are #202X
• 20/20 Vision
• The Stars of 202X
• Reward: 202X
• Rocking 202X

Time-Specific: Pop Culture

• The Pensieve
• Snapped
• Blank Space
• 100% Home-Grown, Farm-Fresh {School Name} Memories
• See You Again
• The {School Mascot}: Age of {School Name}
• Reduce, Reuse, Remember
• #No Filter
• Picture This
• Instant Reply
• Filtered
• Catching Fire
• 201X-202X: A Lot To Like

Evergreen: Nostalgia

• Encore
• No Place Like Home
• Total Recall
• Sand Through the Hourglass
• Good Times
• Wouldn’t Change a Thing
• Wrapped Up
• Old Stories
• A Time To Remember
• As Time Goes By
• A Picture In Time
• A Year In Review
• Reflections
• Sands Of Time
• A Point Of View
• A Look Back
• Always and Forever
• Anthology

Evergreen: In the Moment

• It’s Our Time
• Viva la Vida
• Time of Our Lives
• Perspectives
• Meanwhile
• More Than Words
• Side by Side, Hand in Hand
• Nothing But the Truth
• Scratching the Surface
• Our Year
• Highlights
• Living The Dream
• This Is It
• Profiles
• A Closer Look

Evergreen: The Future

• A Future So Bright
• New Traditions
• A New Day
• Bright Futures
• Finding Our Way
• New Takes | Old Traditions
• Unlocking The Future
• Endless Memories
• Into The Future
• The Road to Tomorrow
• Make Your Mark
• Chapter Infinity
• Gateway
• No Turning Back
• Take a Chance
• The Best is Yet To Come

Evergreen: Showbiz

• Welcome To The Show
• Under The Big Top
• The Main Event
• In Lights
• Headliners
• Bright Lights
• Behind The Scenes
• Action!
• Showstoppers
• A Fresh Take
• All Stars
• Stars of {School Name}

Evergreen: Social Media

• Leaving Our Mark on the World
• [Year] Notifications
• Follow Us
• Shareworthy
• For the Likes
• #NoFilter

Evergreen: Documentary

• Write It Down
• For All To See
• A Blank Slate
• The Whole Picture
• Our Story To Tell
• Put It In Ink
• Not Just Another Year
• Take Note
• A Year In Pictures
• Words Aren't Enough
• A Look Inside
• A Story All Our Own
• Quoted
• (Re)Writing History
• Another Chapter
• Newsworthy
• Headlines
• Signed Sealed Delivered
• Memories: Delivered
• Noted
• Pass It On

Evergreen: Technology

• A Bright Idea
• Keyed Up
• Wired For Success
• Pushing Buttons
• Always On
• Press Play
• Plugged In
• What Makes Us Tick

Evergreen: Nature

• Rising & Shining
• Where The Grass Is Greener
• Life's A Beach
• Riding The Wave
• On The Vine
• In Bloom
• Roots
• Planting A Seed
• Watching {School Name} Grow
• Out of Our Shells
• In a Nutshell
• What's the Buzz?

Evergreen: Journeys

• The Road Less Traveled
• Off The Beaten Path
• Over The Hills & ...
• {School Name} Marks The Spot
• In Flight
• Expanding Our Horizons
• New Views
• Out Of This World
• Unchartered Territories
• Horizons
• Setting Sail
• The Sky’s The Limit
• Going Places
• Have Education Will Travel
• Beyond The Shore
• A Bigger World
• Headed In The Right Direction
• Onward & Upward

Evergreen: Adventure

• Amazing Adventures
• Tall Tales
• A Wild Year
• {School Name}'s Safari
• The Sights We've Seen
• The Amazing Adventures Of 2016
• Super {School Mascot}
• The Incredible Story Of {School Name}
• Oh, the Places We've Been!
• {School Name} Superheroes
• Our Heroes

Evergreen: Inspirational

• Better Than Ever
• Naturally Awesome
• Loud & Proud
• Dream It | Do It
• Shooting For The Stars
• Be Happy
• What A Wonderful World
• How Sweet It Is

Evergreen: Success

• Whatever It Takes
• Tricks Of The Trade
• Pulling It All Together
• It's How You Play
• A Whole New Game
• A Streak of Good Luck
• Wired For Success
• Coming Up Aces

Evergreen: Building

• Blueprints for the Future
• A Year of Building
• Building Towards the Future
• Planning Ahead
• Future Plans
• Blueprints for Life
• Blueprints
• Just Like We Drew It Up
• Dreaming Big
• Towering Memories
• Skylines

Evergreen: Individuality

• Express Yourself
• Expressing Ourselves
• Individuals Together
• Just Like This
• Formalities Aside

Evergreen: Community

• It Takes All Of Us
• How We've Grown
• Coming Together
• Putting It All Together
• Pieces Of The Whole
• Parts Of A Whole
• Done Our Way
• What Makes Us
• Who We Are

Evergreen: Creativity

• Hand-Drawn
• Breaking The Mold
• Drawing It Out
• An Artful Year
• Painting A Picture
• A Colorful Take
• Paint The Town
• Strokes of Genius
• A Picture Of Success
• The Fabric of Our Year
• Tightly Knit
• Painting Memories
• Focus
• A Different Perspective

Treering Yearbook Heroes is a monthly feature focusing on yearbook tips and tricks.

What could you do with a group of four elementary students? How about a middle school club of 10? April Nelson produces separate elementary and middle school yearbooks for her pre-k-12 school. And she won’t take credit for it.

Big picture: How do you manage two teams to create two different books?

My job is to advise and let the kids lead. I look over everything the students create to keep things appropriate and ensure equity in coverage. Each year I cede more control to the students.

This year, the elementary students chose their theme and the middle schoolers created their own ladder. We started with a sample layout from Treering and discussed what had to go in and what they wanted to go in the yearbook. Then, we budgeted pages appropriately.

They really wanted it to be their book. I really try to make it their book.

What does theme development look like with your elementary students?

They chose “Galaxy of Possibilities” for their yearbook theme. It’s fun. Throughout the book, they will incorporate famous quotes about possibilities and dad jokes about space. On the staff spread, it talks about teachers being rocket fuel. They designed their cover and title page. They're enthusiastic.

With only four students meeting once a week, organization is key. I helped them use folders to organize photos so we could keep everything by topic. I communicate with the students and their families regularly and use Google Classroom for assignments and questions. 

How is the middle school club different?

Their ambitions are really high, and I love that they're aiming big. But we have to stay realistic—there are only a certain number of pages and a limited amount we can include. I tell them we may need to scale it back a bit, but I’m still excited to see what they’ll create.

Typically, students come in, grab a Chromebook, and log into Treering. They check how many photos they have and figure out how many more they need. For example, they might notice that they only have photos from one volleyball game and need coverage of another. Then, someone will look up the school website to see when the next game is scheduled. 

I love that they want to just keep working on stuff.

The middle schoolers do a mix of Treering templates and their own designs. They chose to do a board game theme and hired a senior who is dual-enrolled to do the cover design. She came into one of their meetings and they shared their vision, and she drew it out.

Inside the book, the game starts in sixth grade. On the pages, they put fun spaces: they've got things like “You skipped class. Go back four spaces.” “You finished Percy Jackson. Go four spaces ahead.” 

Before partnering with Treering, how did you manage multiple books?

I didn’t! My first year advising was an elementary and a combined middle/high school book. We used to send photos to our previous publisher, and they would create the yearbook. The students didn’t like it because it lacked organization: pictures were thrown together without captions of identifying information. You couldn’t distinguish prom from a dance, and our big Earth Week celebration was sprinkled throughout. Unless you went to the school, you wouldn’t know what was what.

Switching to Treering made the yearbook more personal. We split the book by schools (elementary, middle, and high) when we made the change. It also empowered students to create the book they wanted. The elementary students are now writing basic captions.

Treering allowed them to do that.

Admin was also on board. We’re an environmental school, so our principal loved that there is no waste. We only receive what we pre-order.

How have you seen the yearbook impact students?

If you can develop that rapport with your staff and they know they have the power, they will do great things.

With nearly half of US states banning cell phones in the classroom, many advisers reached out for creative solutions for collecting yearbook photos. Student cell phones can have cameras that capture photos as well as or better than traditional cameras, and have become a cost-reducing factor for yearbook teams. As more schools create and tighten policies governing cell phone usage on campus, we need practical solutions for yearbook class.

The yearbook’s mission remains unchanged.

Take heart, yearbook creators, when parent volunteers weren’t permitted on campus, we pivoted. This is no different. [FWIW, I’m imagining being on a horse, like William Wallace, as I type this.]

^{via GIPHY}

The quick response

The easy solution is to grab some point-and-shoot cameras for yearbook students to have on hand or a few iPad Pros, if your school permits it. Focus the first few class or club meetings on the basics of composition. 

Another solution is photo training with a DSLR or mirrorless camera. Explore aperture (depth of field) and keep track of what ISO and white balance work for specific locations on campus, like the dreaded gym pics, which always look straight out of the 1970s with the yellowed floors and fluorescent lights.

If you don’t have budget constraints, check out our recommendations for yearbook gear.

Capital expenses aren’t for every yearbook team. Additionally, neither of these solutions addresses how to get you and your team everywhere—you can’t. Adding avenues for school staff, parents, and students to contribute photos will grow your reach.

Create a submission pipeline

Photo drop campaigns should be part of every post-event communication from your yearbook team. Did fourth grade take a field trip to the zoo? Reach out later that day to the parents and teachers who went for their snaps. 

Keep in mind, the easier it is to share, the more results you will receive. Also, limiting yourself to one or two avenues will simplify your back-end organization.

Yes, this approach might require more planning and follow-up than in past years. Remember, the systems you build now will benefit your yearbook program long after the initial challenges are resolved.

Photos from teachers and staff

While we cringe at asking our classroom champions to do one more thing, the thought of not celebrating their outstanding work is far worse. Work with your campus administration to add Google folders to the school’s shared Drive.

There should be a folder for each teacher and school-wide folders for holidays, recess, specific school events, lunchtime fun, assemblies, etc. 

Photos from parents

Many of the advisers in Treering’s Official Facebook Group say they have room parents responsible for in-class photos. Additionally, parents are often present at outside events such as concerts, field trips, and games. Partner with them for photos of

• Off-campus event and athletics photos
• Candids from carpool, pick up/drop off
• First day
• Any dress-up or spirit day
• Summer and winter vacations
• Homework and student art

In addition to a shared folder to which parents can drop images, share an email address. 

You can even send targeted asks after events: Hey Fatima, It was great to see you at the Science Fair. Would you please send me 2-3 photos of Jackson and his friends so I can include them in the yearbook? Thank you! 

Full disclosure, any time I see parents taking photos of their children, I ask them to email those photos to me on the spot. 

Shameless.

Photos from students

If your yearbook program has a class or club component, creating photo assignments is one way to secure photos from students. The last thing you want to do is just tell a student, “Go take photographs of science.”

Many schools employ a beat system, assigning students to specific grades, clubs, and sports. This is a way to monitor coverage while teaching communication and project management. Students connect weekly with their contacts (coaches, teachers), find out what is happening, and take photographs of events.

The beat system also serves as accountability: if Erika’s beats have empty content folders in week three, the editorial team needs to redirect her efforts.

If you need help providing photo support, explore

• 5 photography mini lessons
• Classroom photo tips

The key to success lies in early, frequent, and clear communication with your entire school community. When staff, parents, and students understand the goal and their role in achieving it, collaboration becomes smoother and more sustainable.

Explain why the cell phone ban affects yearbook coverage, what kinds of support you need, and how you’ll collect photos. Then, keep the conversation going:

1. Remind teachers of upcoming photo ops
2. Update parents with specific photo requests
3. Train students to use alternative tools and plan ahead.

The more proactive you are, the fewer last-minute gaps you'll face.

Making a yearbook with Treering's online software is as simple as drag and drop. Options such as portrait autoflow and auto layout make anyone look like a professional designer, and integrated professional tools, including a color picker and page designer, give you the flexibility to create from scratch.

Watch a brief software demo.

What editors love

Teachers, parents, and students enjoy using Treering's free online creation software to collaborate on their yearbooks. They also enjoy

• Flexible deadlines
• Three-week turnaround
• Custom pages
• No order minimums
• Ease of use

Why principals choose Treering

School administrators and the front office team appreciate

• No contracts
• Inclusive pricing: 100lb. paper, software, curriculum, bulk shipping to school, themes
• E-commerce tools that collect payment and show real-time order reports
• Fundraiser capabilities
• Parents can order after the deadline (no one ever misses out!)

This is the time of year when all those shared photo folders are filling and your spreads are mostly blank. It’s time to build the book. And if you don’t know where to start, check out a sample yearbook ladder to see how one of our Treering schools organizes its book. 

Principal’s letter

Some of the best advice I ever received on principal letters came from a veteran adviser: “Connect to the theme.” The yearbook theme serves as the unifier between all the clubs, activities, sports, and classes that take place throughout the year. So it makes sense that, as the leader of the school, the principal’s message both unifies and sets the stage for that theme. Incorporating the theme is a way to also recognize the hard work of your yearbook team and a subtle show of support.

When meeting with your principal, communicate:

Depending on your relationship with your principal, you may be able to present a first draft for him/her to finesse. Generally speaking, the principal’s letter appears at the opening or closing of the book or in the staff section.

Classroom photos

Photographs of students working in the classroom give a true portrait of their day. (Lame pun intended.) American students spend roughly a quarter of their day in school. Let’s showcase their contributions and celebrate their achievements. 

‍

Elementary school events

Fundraisers, dances, parades–oh my! These all-school events showcasing your student body's unity are must-haves for your yearbook, as are the class distinctions: 5th/6th grade trip, 100th Day of school, faculty vs. parents soccer game, reading buddies, etc. 

Don’t feel like you have to devote a double-page spread to each! One spread can feature all the class parties, and another the fundraisers. 

Candids/Lunch

Just as the academics photos are valuable, so are the in-between moments when students are at lunch or during transition periods. Playgrounds and lunchrooms are daily photos ops for volunteers and teachers to snap these carefree moments. You may want to include photo collages between grades (i.e. upper and lower school recess and lunch) or as the perimeter for autograph pages.

Portraits

Much of your elementary school yearbook will be portraits–these tend to take up an average of 40% of the book! You can organize these:

• By grade and feature some fun facts about each group (e.g. miles run at the Jogathon)
• By grade and teacher with classroom candids sprinkled in

Heads up: this is where you want to be extra diligent with your proofreading strategy. We suggest handing out your PDF proofs to each teacher to approve or hanging them in a conspicuous place to make sure names and classes are correct.

Extra ideas for your elementary school yearbook

Table of contents

In an elementary school book of 20 pages, will you need a table of contents? Probably not. If you want to help guide your readers, add a small one to your title page. Larger books should divide themselves into sections. A table of contents is a great place to drop in some extra photos of students.

Special recognition for promoting students

Parents love bragging about their children. (Present company included!) If they are not adding copious custom pages, they may appreciate the opportunity for a recognition ad. You'll appreciate the opportunity to raise some additional funds for your program.

Because you know your elementary school community best, you know what they will want in the yearbook. We're here to help!

Yearbook captions provide the context and information to help tell the story behind each photo. They explain what's happening, who is in the picture, and why it's significant. Without captions, many images may lose their meaning or context. Conversely, it is not a storytelling photo if you cannot write about it.

Try this: open your middle school yearbook and try to name all the people on page 24. Can you do it without looking at the captions?

Three types of yearbook captions

Ident captions

Also, called ID captions, they do just that: identify who is in the photograph. Often used in photo collages, ident captions preserve the names of individuals for posterity and historical record. At a basic level, knowing the names of the individuals can make the yearbook content more personal and relatable, and, from a student’s point of view, their name equates to their mark on your campus community.

Summary captions

These captions tell a brief story or narrative related to the photo. They engage the reader by presenting the photo as part of a larger, unfolding story by answering who, what, when, why, where, and how in a sentence. Summary captions are always written in the present tense.

Start by being Captain Obvious and use the why and how to give readers more information.

Expanded captions

Writing an expanded caption for a yearbook involves providing more context and detail about the photo. It’s journalism. It requires practice. It’s a skill. Each expanded caption is a three-sentence story that adds depth to your spread and supports the whole year’s narrative.

Expanded captions have three parts, four if your yearbook has a lede.

How do I write expanded captions?

Because writing is a process, each of the following steps takes time and attention to be effective.

Step 1: observe and analyze the photograph

Identify key elements, people, objects, and actions using who, what, when, why, where, and how. Be sure to consider the emotions, expressions, and details within the foreground and background of the image. 

Verify names and activities before moving to the second step.

Step 2: prepare interview questions

Use open-ended questions to gather more information, opinions, and insights from individuals. Find out what happened before and after the photograph and the relationships between the people in the image. Remember, it’s better to have to cut down content than scramble to fill space.

The goal of your interview is to provide additional context and meaning. Showing up and saying, “Give me a quote for the yearbook,” isn’t going to achieve that.

Step 3: put it all together

What not to do

Avoid editorializing and jokes. It’s not your job to critique what is happening (Romero’s awesome painting) or change the narrative (Is that Bob Ross? No, it’s Ezekiel Romero). Your job is to report. Quotes should be used to convey the feelings or reactions of the people involved.

Get more caption help with the writing module in Treering's free curriculum.

By adding captions—ident, summary, or expanded—you not only describe the photo, but also provide a deeper understanding of the moment and its significance, making your yearbook more engaging and informative.

A colleague who studied violin using the Suzuki Method shared that he was able to succeed because he didn’t go from 0-60 in a few lessons. He mastered a concept, then added another. This anecdote inspired me to make “Easy +1” my MO. I use it as a guide for teaching my students to read, increasing the palate of my toddler, and improving each yearbook of which I am part. We don’t have to do it all.

You don’t have to do it all.

With the right support and the resources we picked for you below, choose one thing (yes, one!) as a focus for this year. Get in the details. Fail. Learn from your mistakes, and to paraphrase Michael Scott, create “even harder.”

3 photography helps

Improving yearbook photography is going to have an immediate impact. Why? The assumption is that the yearbook is a book of photos. While I truly wish people went as crazy as I did about the wordplay in ledes and headlines and understood the thematic verbal-visual connection, knowing parents, teachers, and students are sharing storytelling photos is part marketing genius, part one-less-thing-this-adviser-has-to-do. 

1. Set up a sports photo submission process

Tap into whatever system your school uses to share files using Treering’s crowdsourcing tools. In addition to shared folders, Treering also has Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, and Google Drive integrations. Remember to include groups such as the marching band, poms, cheer team, boosters, and the spirit squad which are also at sporting events.

2. Teach photography

(Spoiler alert: if you’re not a photographer, you can learn alongside your yearbook team.) We created these five mini-lessons to level up your photography.

3. Create a shot list (or use ours!)

Classroom photos highlight the bulk of a student’s in-school day. And I promise you, they aren’t lined up against the classroom centers with fake smiles. Do yourself and the staff on campus a favor: show and tell. Show examples of action pics in the classroom. Tell them what you need. Professional photographers use shot lists to ensure they take all the essential photos and their clients receive what they need.

How to include more students in the yearbook

Yearbook coverage is a personal soapbox. Our job is to create a yearbook that accurately reflects our student body from price point to the people pictured. Here are five ways to improve yours.

1. Crowdsource content for a more equitable yearbook

If you want your book to look like your school, your school needs to help you build your book. 

2. Develop evergreen content

Using these 40 open-ended interview questions, you can get students talking. Start with a question of the day and have your yearbook team members connect with five other students. The next day, there is a fresh question for five different students. And so on. 

3. Change how you cover holidays

Many of us parents grew up with the adage: politics and religion never make for polite conversation. By focusing your interviews on the individuals—versus the religious or cultural practice—you will see their POVs.

4. Create topical collage pages

There’s a difference between a printed pile of pics and a well-designed layout. 

5. Shrink your portraits and add content to portrait pages

Personality profiles, responses from the evergreen content (see #2 above), and infographics can increase the impact of your class pages. Feature those students who aren’t starring in the spring musical or beating school records.

Level up your layouts

You can upgrade your yearbook’s design by applying hierarchy in your layout design. 

1. Design hierarchy basics

Identifying dominant, secondary, and tertiary elements will help you see why some pages “work” and others do not.

2. Mild, medium, or spicy design?

Yearbook Hero Lauren Casteen developed a scaffolded approach to teaching yearbook graphic design to her students and created these adviser resources.

3. The truth about yearbook fonts

Your font choice will affect and effect your buyers. Choose wisely.

4. Mastered the above? Try modular design

Design hierarchy is essential when going modular: each mod has its own dominant and secondary elements that fit into the structure of the spread. When done well, modular design improves consistency, collaboration efforts, and coverage.

We took the first step in gathering lessons, examples, and tips from other editors. It’s your turn to take the next one.