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January 21, 2025

3 questions about school anniversary yearbooks

How to capture a milestone year in your campus’ history frequently pops up in adviser chats. Yearbook Hero Beth Stacy said her team “linked the past to the present” with their 75th anniversary yearbook. That’s the goal. 

1. What’s the Best Way to Show School History in an Anniversary Book?

Anniversary books don’t have to deviate from your normal yearbooking protocol. It can be minimal, such as in a 40th anniversary book, asking students where they want to be in the next 40 years. Or devoting a spread to a list of 100 things to love about your school in its 100th year (remember to include alumni). Or even showing photos of teachers on the staff page from the year the school was founded.

The ideas below take up a spread or two, so your focus can be the history currently written in the year at hand. 

School Timeline

Schools commonly create a timeline outlining specific milestones and achievements. For Rock Academy in CA’s 15th anniversary, yearbook creators featured two pages of school history with old photos of current students. 

This design stood out for a few reasons: visually, they chose a script and overlapping images to portray the connectedness of the school community. Verbally, the 15th-year theme is "Newly Arrived" and they used "Not Going Anywhere" for the headline. Brilliant.

The timeline included when faculty members joined, the expansion of course offerings, and photos of the first-ever graduate. Old photos had the year on the bottom right corner to denote the past from the present. They continued this trend on divider pages.

Cover the Years

When Wayne High School in OH published its 75th yearbook, the editorial team created two spreads showing the school's history through their yearbook covers. The team at Wayne worked with the alumni association, the local historical society, and the school archives to find most of the yearbooks. 

By involving yearbook stakeholders, the Signal's staff included their community. Interestingly, the school is older than the town that houses it.

Wayne High School also did a spread featuring the ten alumni teachers with their senior yearbooks.

Then and Now

(Side note: this would make a great anniversary yearbook theme.)

The team at H.O.P.E. in TX also took a trip to the yearbook archives. They scanned old photos from previous books to do side-by-sides with their present counterparts. They also researched the cost of goods from 30 years ago to show life off campus. 

Adviser Rita Johson's team also interviewed alumni from the first graduating class and pictured previous advisers in the colophon. She said this was the first year they created a style guide; the yearbook design process evolved from more of a scrapbook to using mods. The team enjoyed exploring the school archives and found 19 yearbooks for the school's 30 years.

(Editor's note: these pages didn't appear together in the yearbook.)
The yearbook team used the Polaroid effect to visually separate historical photos.

Pro tip: Save yourself the scanning. If you’ve been with Treering for multiple years, your yearbook covers and photos are in your yearbook account.

Treering stores your past yearbook photos the same way we share your old yearbooks, indefinitely.

2. What’s a “Good” Theme?

Well-executed themes cover the school year both verbally and visually. It shows and tells. In a milestone year, like your school’s 50th anniversary, it may be tempting to try and carry this concept through the entire book. Full stop. Unless the winning point guard from the 6th grade basketball team is currently coaching his great-grandson, resist the urge to make your anniversary the yearbook theme. This year (the buyers!) will always be the primary focus. 

https://blog.treering.com/how-to-choose-a-yearbook-theme/

Verbal Theme Ideas

Because yearbook creators love the look, we’re starting with the “sound” of the theme. Headlines, theme copy, and spin-offs should reflect your yearbook’s theme.

https://blog.treering.com/how-to-improve-yearbook-headlines/

Evergreen Anniversary Theme Ideas

  • Construction-focused: “Built to Last” or “Foundation for Tomorrow”
  • Timeline focused: “Our Journey Here,” “Milestones Marked,” and “Then and Now”
  • Younger school: “The Wonder Years”
  • Older school: “Timeless”

Year-Specific Theme Ideas

  • 10-20-30, etc.: “Decades of Excellence”
  • 15: “Time to Shine”
  • 50: “Golden Moments” 
  • 100: “A Century Strong”
https://blog.treering.com/gold-yearbook-themes/

Visual Theme Considerations

Align your theme’s aesthetic with the verbal tone. Taking a page from my junior year, the theme “Reflections” should have some mirroring in the graphics, if not some shine on the cover. 

Traditional anniversary gifts—a list that dates back to the 19th century—prescribe the following:

  • 10th anniversary - tin or aluminum
  • 15th anniversary - crystal
  • 25th anniversary - silver
  • 50th anniversary - gold 

You can easily add such elements to your cover finish. Bringing your “golden anniversary” to life can be as simple as adding gold foil. Treering also offers silver foil and clear UV embossing.

Inside your yearbook, you could (choose one!)

  • Denote old photos by making them black and white or using a Polaroid-style frame (like HOPE did)
  • Hide 20 pictures of your mascot (if it’s your 20th)
  • Use blueprints or construction photos for a significant building project

3. When Should I Do an Anniversary Yearbook?

We see anniversary books for 10-100 years, and everything in between. The caveat here is that if your school is doing nothing, why would the yearbook? Align with your school community to get the final answer on this one. 

Getting Personal: Treering’s 15th Anniversary Book

As Treering’s 15th year closes, we created our first-ever anniversary yearbook. Our staff took yearbook photos on the conventional blue background. As a cross-functional team, yearbook creators interviewed staff members and collected photos of people in the home office as well as remote teammates’ home offices.

Unlike a school where students promote and graduate, many staff members are in their second decade with the company, and two of the founders are involved in the day-to-day. The history section features photos of the early offices and staff, the original 44 schools, and a history of Treering-produced theme art. It is heavy on nostalgia.

We look forward to celebrating many more milestones with you.

December 17, 2024

The one layout template you need

Yearbook coverage ideas might be our favorite topic: brainstorming ways to represent more students, resulting in a more authentic narrative of the school year. It could also mean more photos, interviews, and work for you. After a colleague shared Kingsbury Country Day School’s yearbook, a lightbulb went off. Yearbook coordinator Kara-Jane LaVoisne created the perfect layout that includes over 60 students, highlighting their impact and participation in school events.

Using a past Treering Year in Review spread as inspiration, LaVoisne created a school-specific version.

Why We Love This Template

This spread packs a punch because it covers a large span of time in little space. It covers 24% of the school across two pages. It showcases events that would not be covered elsewhere. This template is also well-designed: it’s clean and has multiple reader entry points.

Home For Smaller Events

Oftentimes, we have several photos that don’t fit on a larger spread. This is especially common in books that do not take advantage of modular design. LaVoisne took advantage of those moments to create a means to include them.

Versatility

While LaVoisne used this template for a school-specific year-in-review, you can use it once per section or season. For example:

  1. Fall, winter, and spring PTA or ASB events
  2. An overview of the sports seasons
  3. Semester rundown of student life

If you’re feeling ambitious and have the content, an hour-by-hour review of a major school event such as the talent show or homecoming weekend could be a showstopper spread for your yearbook.

To find this template in Treering's layout and design menu, search "calendar" under “all page templates."

What’s most important: your yearbook team celebrates the people in your campus community. This layout is just one way to cover more students in your yearbook. For more creative yearbook coverage inspiration, check out:

October 15, 2024

Coverage ideas: how to get more students in the yearbook

Thinking critically about yearbook coverage is an editorial mind shift. Shiny things such as theme art and backgrounds often take precedence. Yearbook coverage highlights all the memorable people and events. And there is a flip side: planning yearbook coverage is also a conscious decision on what you’re not going to cover. 

Coverage Limitations

Yearbook price, page count, and–gasp–traditions limit coverage. For Treering schools, page count directly influences the price point. Your per-book price is based on the core page count (does not include custom pages), and cover finish.

Page Count and Coverage Budgets

For those with a class or club, a coverage budget helps you and your team be intentional. Start by listing the sections in your book. Then budget spreads to each section.

Yearbook Traditions

We don’t mean the fun ones like Yerdsgiving or distribution. No matter the school size, there is an element of expectation on you as the adviser. Be aware of the sacred cows of your yearbook program. These can range from color palettes to the ultimate sacred cow, senior quotes. (We interrupt this blog to give you the resource you didn’t know you needed: three reasons to get rid of senior quotes and how to replace them.) 

If you're willing to take the energy to fight tradition, and have a clear reason, go for it. 

For example, when my school hit 11 years, my students deviated from alternating purple and black covers. They created a blue and red book, with PK-6 on one side and 7-12 on the other. Their reasoning? For the first time in school history, there were separate principals for the upper and lower schools. 

My students wanted to highlight how each grew independent of the other, and instead of pushing to do two smaller books, recognized the power of us all still being in one building. The yearbook students saw it as a picture of unity; the other students saw it as the school spirit equivalent of treason. Bottom line: blue and red make purple. Once that line made it around campus, everyone loved the book. Ten years later, we have not published a purple or black book. 

Change takes time.

People Over Events

This is our coverage mantra. When you highlight people, your yearbook develops an emotional connection as students see their art, stories, meaningful quotes, and photos of their experiences. Every student wants to know they were in it. They were included. Their story was deemed valuable enough to be in the yearbook. 

We're always going to highlight people over the events. People happen in the context of the events, and in each event, highlight those behind the scenes, up front, and watching. Remember:

  • Set up and take down
  • Fan and audience reactions
  • Snack bars, spirit shops, and the bench
  • The booth: announcers, tech crew, coaches, press

You need not think each will get a spread. Modular design is a way to fit more content in and do it stylishly. (If you don’t want to start from scratch, Treering themes “POV,” “Tied Together,” and “Crafted” have modular layouts from which you can model.)

People First Ideas

We want to move away from students opening the book, finding their name or face, and moving on. Below are some ideas to help you add stories and make them dynamic so people pause their perusal to get personal.

When Mission Oak lost a beloved teacher, adviser Matt Jones helped his team create a dedication spread. It didn't just capture the man, it captured his impact.

Dedications, Retirements, and Unsung Heroes: Every school has one teacher, volunteer, or student leader who positively impacts school culture. Honor their impact with a small write up or a full-spread dedication.

Future Plans: Publish elementary school “What I want to be…” and high school post-graduation plans.

Trends: Waterbottles, fashion, and laptop stickers are great. The stories behind them are better.

Instead of a portrait-heavy senior section, Sequoia High's focus was on student voices. Each spread has two personality profiles and a pull quote.

Personality Profiles: We love making room for additional stories by shrinking portraits and adding content.

Pets: Pets are an easy way to cover camera-shy students or get families started with crowdsourcing.

Design Contest Runner Up
When Northern High School left its original location in Durham, NC, the yearbook team organized their book by geography. Above, we see the faces and classes that make up East Hall.

School Map: Students spend 8-12 hours on campus. Find out where the best study and nap locations are. Interview athletes from each sport who practice on the turf. 

Interactive Pages: One thing we saw multiple times during the duration of TRL 24 was “Guess Who?” spreads and modules:

  • Guess Whose… eyeglasses, water bottle, ect.
  • Match the baby photo to the 5th grader or teacher
  • Match the teachers to their first job

People also loved the Treering About Me pages.

Yearbook Blacklists and BOLO Boards

Many students are easy to cover three times because they fell into the 1-2-3 coverage pattern:

  1. Portrait
  2. Extracurricular
  3. Academics

For those who do not, use the coverage ideas above to get them in the book. 

We understand that the same events occur year after year. Challenge yourself to cover them in two new ways. How will you and your yearbook team give a fresh take on the students on your campus this year?

This blog is adapted from Brent Mikolaycik and Erika Lin Payne’s Coverage Ideas session from TRL 24 POV: I’m on the Yearbook Team. Mikolaycik and Payne came to Treering Yearbooks after nearly two decades as classroom teachers and high school yearbook advisers.

June 25, 2024

Collage page ideas

Photo collages get a bad rap. Poorly designed spreads without uniform spacing or an overarching theme are little more than a photo dump. (I actually think that’s how my MIL would describe what I do as a yearbook mom. “She just puts pictures on pages.”) Executed well, they become standout spreads. 

How Many Photos Should I Put in a Collage?

Answering a question with a question: is it even a collage if it has fewer than 15 photos? Too few can make the page look sparse, while too many can make it cluttered and overwhelming.

A good range for a collage spread is roughly 20-30 photos. While you can find layouts with up to 65 photo boxes among Treering’s 1000s of pre-designed templates, more photos mean smaller photos. Smaller photos make it difficult to discern who is in the picture. 

That’s the point of a collage: to increase coverage of events and individuals. 

Templates can help with the alignment and spacing of photos, making the pages look well-organized. (Treering theme used: Empire)

 

Two Must-Have Collage Pages

When our team looks at yearbooks, the standout books have collage pages for each class or grade and the major school events. While collage pages are a great way to include many photos, too many can become monotonous. Aim to limit collage pages to around 10-15% of the total page count of the yearbook. This keeps the content varied and engaging.

Use a collage page to break up portrait page after portrait page.

Class Collages

Pairing class photos with a collage of candids gives each class a spread of their own. It shows how each class is different. This is also an easy way to ensure each student is in the book more than once: their “official” photo and a fun photo.

Using a grid layout, Rebecca Tillman's team made a BINGO card to display photos from their event. With the right-facing page, also on a grid, the 46 photos have an order, faces are large enough to be seen, and it's balanced.

School Event Pages

A collage page makes it easy to cover all-school events such as the jogathon or an awards ceremony, where you end up with 100s of photographs. Other ideas include

  • Fan sections at home games
  • Movie night
  • Father-daughter dance
  • Homecoming and spirit week
  • Game faces for student-athletes
  • Vacations (summer, ski week, etc.)
  • Field day
  • Spring musical (include rehearsal photos!)

Should I Include Captions on a Collage Page?

Captions provide context for the photo. At a minimum, you should include ident captions. Below or beside the photos, add the students’ names and grades [e.g. Soren Ham (1) and Evangeline Romero (1)]. 

By adding the cast, Carol Landers provided some context to her school play collage.

Middle and high school staffs should aim to add body copy in the form of a story to unite the spread. 

Including collage pages in your yearbook is a popular way to add more photos and showcase the story of your school year. 

February 20, 2024

Yearbook in 60 days - part 3: yearbook design

Two blogs ago, we began our journey to start and finish a yearbook in 60 days. From establishing a ladder and crowdsourcing structure to flowing portraits and adding in fall events, the first month yielded a near-complete yearbook. These next fifteen days of our adventure include proofing, promoting, and packing in spring events. All the resources you need are linked below (for help center articles, you will need to log in to the editor help center).

Halfway through building a yearbook in 60 days.

Yearbook (yes, it is a verb) along with us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

1. PDF Proofing

Just because we are speeding through the yearbook creation process doesn’t mean we will be careless. Proofing tools such as downloadable PDFs and a free, physical cover-to-cover proof of your yearbook are free through Treering.

Because we all do our best proofing after the book goes to print...

Let’s start with PDFs. English teachers everywhere will tell you errors that are missed on the screen often pop on paper. Read any copy (stories and captions) aloud to assess for tone and errors that digital proofing tools missed. These are low-resolution (the actual print file size might crash your computer), so you can download them quickly.

Use your PDF proofs to also

  • Triple-check your portrait pages: correct spelling of names, the accurate placement of students and teachers in classes or grades
  • Ensure faces aren’t lost on the edges (margins) or in the middle (gutter) of your spread
  • Students are visible in the photos: sometimes, a photo box is the wrong size, and the faces are either huge or unrecognizably small. When possible, try to make all faces on a collage spread the same size.
  • Show sneak peeks to your buyers - when parents see their child is in the book, they will buy the book!

Pro tip: use as many of your 99 PDF proofs as possible! 

Yearbook Editing Resources

2. Design Pages (Spring/Second Semester Events)

Last time, you learned two ways to design. Because the second semester is unfolding as you build your yearbook, it may be easier to collect photos. This is the time to evaluate those first semester spreads: if they are not full by now, combine events and re-allocate space.

Each March, Treering releases fully editable year-in-review, trend, and feature spreads. These pre-designed pages are a drag-and-drop addition to any yearbook.

Coverage Resources

3. Purchase Reminders

In these remaining 30 days, up your promotion game by doing at least one thing a week to share about the yearbook:

  • Reach out after each school event with the appropriate photo share link and email
  • Call or email parents of students who are in the book three times and have not purchased 
  • Have a contest: the grade or homeroom with the largest percentage of purchases earns extended recess
  • Remind purchasers to customize their yearbooks (more on this next time)
  • Ask campus influencers (ASB, PTA/PTO accounts, athletics) to hype the yearbook
  • Have flyers at a school-wide event, such as the band showcase
English and Spanish versions of your free yearbook flyers are under the Promote Tab.

Yearbook Sales Resources

4. Printed Proof

Treering’s Marketing Manager Megan P. likes to say, “Works in progress welcome!” Because you need your printed proof in hand before your final deadline, order it now. It can take up to 18 business days for this yearbook freebie to arrive.

With portraits and fall events in the book, there is plenty to evaluate. Use your remaining PDFs for copy and photo edits.

We made you a list. Now, check it twice.

Pro tip: When my printed proof arrives, I take a Sharpie and mark it up. Then, I use it as a tool to clean up each spread one by one.

Proofing Resources

Yearbook with a Friend

Involve a second or third set of eyes during the proofing process. Potential yearbook proofing heroes include:

  • Front office staff (they know all the things)
  • Student TAs 
  • The secretary of the parent group
  • Coaches and club leaders
  • A friend who owes you a solid

Next time, we’ll send the yearbook to print and prepare for distribution.

January 16, 2024

How to create interactive yearbook pages

Adding an interactive element to your yearbook pages can increase engagement and personalization in a culture measured by double taps and shares. Interactive yearbooks can have modules or spreads where students can record their ideas or engage with content. (And if you know anything about Treering, we’re all about making yearbooks as unique as your students.) Below are four ideas, from drag-and-drop solutions to those requiring a bit more delegation (wink) for your yearbook.

Interactive = Personal

The most hands-off way to help others interact with your yearbook is Treering’s custom pages. These two free pages in every yearbook are prime real estate for artwork, celebrations, firsts (lost tooth, car, homerun, etc.), and what matters most to each family. Knowing they are creating a keepsake, many parents opt to add more pages.

These custom page examples from the Treering team include non-school sports, pets, milestones, and family trips.

All About Me Pre-Designed Pages

While seeing all that our school community achieved in a year gives us the feels, adding opportunities for students to share their take captures a deeper moment in time. It shows students how they contribute to the whole with their unique take on the school year. Adding an All About Future Me component allows students to dream. (Moms, it also gives us something to read aloud at their graduation, “Yes, Erikson, you really did aspire to be an underwater ninja.”)

Search "about" under layout and design to see the 21 pre-designed interactive Q&A pages. All of the questions are fully editable. (Treering theme used: Crafted)

Pro tip: many Treering themes have these templates ready for you to drag onto a page.

Fill-in-the Blank Stories

Part 80s nostalgia, part English teacher ploy to get us to know our parts of speech, fill-in-the-blank stories can range from nonsensical to [fill in the blank]. 😉

We created one you can copy and paste for your yearbook.

Customize this School Days fill-in-the-blank story for your yearbook with this Google doc. (Treering theme used: Not a Diary)

Puzzles

Including puzzles in a yearbook enhances personalization because they can play with words, images, and situations unique to your campus, fostering a sense of ownership. Simultaneously, these activities bring additional engagement into the yearbook, making the publication more dynamic. You can choose to add content with words and pictures.

Word Puzzles

Word searches, crossword puzzles, and the like add an entertaining interactive break from traditional pages. Additionally, for younger students, they can be a means to involve family members who may enjoy solving the puzzles with their child, creating another shared yearbook experience.

Include things in your puzzles such as school subjects and the 

  • Mascot
  • School address (street and city)
  • Special events or all-school activities
  • Principal’s last name
  • Names of clubs, teams, or electives

An online puzzle maker can help you customize an interactive puzzle.

People Matching

More fun than a history quiz, a yearbook matching module is a way to use your interactive content to increase coverage. Answers can share a page with the colophon.

Match

  • Students to cars 
  • Baby photo to the students or teacher
  • Teachers to their first job
  • The cleat to the sport
  • The fundraising total to the class

The easiest ask: pets. 

Side note: maybe I should have titled this, “Gamify your yearbook.”

I Spy

There are two takes on this:

1. Search for objects such as eight basketballs, 14 pencils, and five nets. These items already exist within a section or the yearbook as a whole; you're just asking the student body to take a closer look.

On divider pages, student editor Clarice W. put a list of ten things to find in the section. The answers appeared in the index. (If you're thinking the pics look funny, it's because the visual theme was anaglyph 3D.)

2. Find a person. This is the most labor-intensive: hide a COB of your mascot throughout the yearbook. (Yearbook Hero Katie Parish had a great take on this.)

Yearbook Hero Katie Parish created this module of her school's principal dressed as Waldo to give the yearbook an interactive element.
Parish's inspiration came when the principal dressed up like Waldo for Halloween.

Adding one or all four of these interactive yearbook page ideas gives students a place to reflect, share their “voice,” and foster a sense of community ownership of your collective narrative.

May 9, 2023

5 graduation photo and caption ideas

It's that time when end-of-the-year events on campus dominate our social calendars and social feeds. Whether you're doing a quick post-ceremony graduation photoshoot with friends or snapping last-minute custom page poses for the yearbook, here are five graduation photo ideas plus some fun Instagram captions to use. I met up with my neighbor, Avery who is a high school senior, varsity athlete, super babysitter, and future marketing professional for these video tutorials and inspirational photos.

Remember, the best photos are the ones that align with your personality.

Photo of a senior in her cap and gown walking towards the school building, looking over her shoulder
Looking forward to looking back #graduation, #classof2024

Pose 1: Looking Forward to Looking Back

A simple graduation pose you can do pre-ceremony is the over-the-should smile. Set a "mark" for your subject to do the look so you can focus there. The concrete in front of the school helped us time the shots. Unless you use a telephoto lens on a proper camera, ensure your background is more interesting than that parking lot.

In the video above, notice the multiple flashes. This means the cell phone is on "burst" or "multi-shot mode" which gives you more options with which to work.

Female senior blowing glitter from the margin of her yearbook
All that glitters is (yearbook) gold! #classof2024, #yearbookeditor, #yearbookmemories, #treering

Pose 2: All That Glitters

Your first day of grade school probably involved some glitter, so why not celebrate the final day of grade school with it?

During the shoot, Avery and I found coarse glitter has more movement and picks up better with a cell phone. (It still wasn't fun to clean up.)

Graduation photo of a senior against a brick wall
This is just the beginning. #classof2024, #graduation, #graduationsofinstagram

Pose 3: Portrait Perfection

Portrait mode on a cell phone improved our Insta-presence by adding depth to photos.

To get the most from portrait mode, add space between your subject and the background. I had Avery lean against the wall in a relaxed standing pose. at an angle. The angle allowed for the mortar lines (leading lines in photography) to draw the viewer's eye to her face.

Graduation photo of a woman in a cap and gown throwing her cap in the air
It's not the end, it's just the beginning. #captoss, #graduationday, #classof2024

Pose 4: MVPose

The cap toss is the image most of us think of when we picture graduation. Using burst mode, snap several photos of your senior doing his/her own version.

Because yellowish-green gym lighting is notoriously tricky, you'll want to use your in-camera photo editor to reduce the warmth and add a slight coolness to the tint. This pose also works well on the football field because there is plenty of overhead clearance.

Graduate holding her cap in front to create depth
Setting my cap for what's ahead! #wedidit, #hereigo, #graduating

Pose 5: Cap It Off

Remember our discussion of depth of field and portrait mode? Another application is for the cap. Many students decorate theirs, so make it the focal point of an image.

In the video, you can see how raising the phone just a bit flattered Avery more. My yearbook adviser always said, "Zoom with your feet," and it's stuck with me decades later.

Tips to Capture a Great Graduation Photo

Because authenticity goes a long way, here are a few ways to make the poses below your own.

  1. Try to avoid stiff or unnatural poses. Instead, move around and experiment with different angles until you find a pose that feels comfortable and looks good.
  2. The background of your photo can add interest and depth to your pose. Look for interesting locales that complement your outfit and pose. Off-campus, visit community murals, local landmarks, and parks as your graduation photo spot.
  3. Props can add visual interest and help tell a story in your photo. Consider using props like sports equipment, a yearbook, confetti, or a graduation cap.
  4. Experiment with different angles to find the one that flatters you the most. Try shooting from above, below, or at eye level.
  5. You can sit, stand, jump, walk, or even lie down for your senior photo.

If you're saying cheers to the end of an era and the start of a new one, may your memories be filled with joy.

January 31, 2023

Six ideas to fill pages

Page count can be a dirty word in the yearbook industry. It’s how we compare programs or evaluate pricing. It's also how we wow our readers. Peppering in showstopper spreads breaks up the monotony of photo collages, portraits, and team photos. These pages also fill your yearbook with even more personal stories and unique-to-this-year happenings. (And if we're being honest, these last-minute ideas can help you increase coverage with ease.)

1. Interactive Pages

Drop-in yearbook spreads, such as about me pages make it effortless to complete the year's story. You can customize the questions and prompts on these fully editable yearbook templates and give students even more space to share their POV on the year. If you don't have a spread to fill, consider adding a sidebar so students can react to campus happenings.

Emoji-themed "About Me" and "About Future Me" yearbook pages to put in your yearbook.
If you're creating your own interactive spreads from scratch, start by brainstorming open-ended questions. (Then again, if you want something drag-and-drop, we have that too.)

2. Spirit Quiz

When Sequoia High School had over half a page to fill in their junior section, they added a teen magazine-style quiz. This spirit self-assessment featured eight additional students plus the school mascot while showing off what is uniquely Panther programming.

Using modules in your portrait section adds both visual interest and additional coverage. We call this win-win-win. (Treering theme used: Spectrum)

Make it Your Own

For your spirit quiz, determine which activities and behaviors define your student body and assign a point value. For example:

  • Owning spirit wear +1
  • Participating in a club +2
  • Attending a musical or a sporting event +3
  • Knowing the lyrics to the fight song or alma mater +3
  • Serving the community+3

Use the scoring to affirm your community, even if it's a one or two. A simple "we want to know you more" will go far for students trying to find their way.

3. Then and Now

We’ll save the yearbook-as-public-record soapbox for another blog. Know this: anniversary years are a great time to reflect on where your school community has been and where you are headed. Schools also use building projects, campus splits, and expansion projects to add reflective photos and copy to their yearbook pages. Does this sound overwhelming? A show-stopper spread in your theme copy or your people section is all you need.

Yearbook table of contents featuring a brief timeline of events from Magnolia's 50-year history.
When Magnolia Middle School celebrated its 50th anniversary, it included photographs of the campus along with the current promoting class. (Treering theme used: Stay Gold)

In addition to featuring changes in the building, you can write about or share photographs from

  • Teachers and coaches who are alumni
  • Current students of alumni
  • Famous alumni (ICYMI: alumni are a huge resource)
  • The local historical society
  • Past yearbooks 
  • Blueprints

4. Pet Spread

If you’re new to crowdsourcing, or in need of additional coverage, start with a pet spread. If we’ve learned anything from #caturday and #dogsofinstagram, it’s that sharing pet photos brings us joy and is a natural part of our culture. Case in point, when our design team asked the Treering staff to submit photos of their children and pets to use in sample spreads, the latter had nearly twice the submissions. 

Sample yearbook pet spread using crowdsourced content
We love seeing pet photos in our feeds and in our yearbooks. (Treering theme used: Origami)

When your students crack their yearbooks open in five or 15 years, the sight of their furry, feathered, or scaly friend beside their artwork and activities truly captures a moment in time.

5. Art Showcase Pages

Student contributions extend beyond the field, club meetings, and stage. Those creative moments in the studio or during classroom art time belong on your yearbook pages. Also, like a pet spread, an art spread is a way to include those camera-shy students.

This is another pre-designed page that's ready to drop in your book.

6. Fashion Page

Expression isn’t limited to canvas and ink: Yearbook Hero Grace Montemar said her school included a fashion spread because it “allowed Yearbook Club to spotlight classmates from various grades whose fashion sense stood out from the crowd.” Featured students expressed their style and their inspiration with interviews.

Fill you pages with a yearbook spread on fashion including photos and an interview on style inspiration

We love how this school asked students from each grade level to come to the photoshoot in a white shirt and jeans. 

Pull quotes and a school-wide poll make this spread a true snapshot of style. A studio shoot takes some time to plan, and the results are worth it. (Treering theme used: Spectrum)

Do you have more easy ideas to fill pages? Share them via social and tag us!

January 10, 2023

23 yearbook hacks for 2023

Forget resolutions, it's time to get to work. Our staff brainstormed the top yearbook hacks you can use at any stage in the yearbook creation process and packed this blog with videos, how-tos, and examples. Use the quick links below if you need to jump to a specific area.

Yearbook Design Hacks

Designing a yearbook is much more than just putting pictures on pages. Intentionality, storytelling, and branding are included. The following time- and sanity-savers will help you progress in your role as editor, adviser, coordinator, or yearbook fan girl.

1. Auto Layout

What if you could just drag the photos you want to use on a spread and they would magically be organized and re-sized? Voilà!

The best part? Everything is still fully editable, so if you need a starting point, you can continue to build your spreads with more photos and text, swap our images, and change the color of the elements.

2. Color Picker

You can pull the exact color from any picture to add to your design. This builds the yearbook’s visual cohesiveness because you can pull from photos or graphics to create your custom palette.

3. Layers in Design

Up your design by using layers to arrange photos, images, and text. In the examples below, you'll see graphic elements used as photo frames (movie night spread) and editable shapes used to organize content (table of contents). Using the forward and background tools in the options panel can help you arrange elements.

  • Yearbook spread showing layering of photos and graphic elements
  • Yearbook table of contents using layered text

4. Custom Pages

Schools are used to offering senior ads as a way to congratulate students. Treering schools take it a step further and allow every family to tell their story with two free custom pages (and the option to add even more).

https://blog.treering.com/custom-pages-or-senior-ads/

5. Missing Portrait Hack

"Picture day is the easiest day of the year," said no adviser ever. As hard as we work to make it a flawless experience and to capture every student and staff member, perfect attendance is out of our control. One way we love to see people included in their respective sections is by flowing them in with this spirited touch.

6. Advanced Portrait Settings

Another hack for your people section is included with the advanced portrait settings. Subtitles are a simple way to add marks of distinction such as student activities and honors as well as staff department or job titles. Other advanced portrait settings include spacing and sizing options.

Sequoia High flows their faculty and staff by last name, so department identification is included.

7. The Magical Shift Key

Shift your process for aligning and rotating objects.

8. Printed Proof

A printed proof is an exact copy of your yearbook, and every school gets one free. Use your printed proof to

  • Check the placement of cover art
  • Assess the readability of fonts, especially the names on your portrait pages
  • Show off your amazing work (more on this in the marketing section)

9. Picking Favorites—it's OK!

"Liking" graphics, backgrounds, and photos makes it easier to find them to add to yearbook spreads. To use your hand-picked collection in your book, filter by "My Likes" and "Team Likes" in the drop-down.

A red heart indicates a "like" and we like to use this to mark which pics have to be in the book. It is also a teaching tool: use likes to discuss what makes a great photograph with your yearbook staff.

10. Pre-Designed Pages

Annually, Treering publishes elementary and middle/high school "Year in Review" and "Best of the Year" Pre-Designed yearbook spreads. These spreads include noteworthy highlights from pop culture and current events, and like all things Treering, these pages are editable so you can choose to replace the content with your own. Some communities prefer school or local election news, campus trends, or athletic records. Pre-Designed pages which include mention of our philanthropic partner, Sandy Hook Promise, are also available as well as about me, art gallery, and puzzle pages.

Get More People in the Yearbook

The best practice for yearbook coverage is to ensure each student is in the yearbook three times. Think one photo in each section: portrait, classroom, and activity.

11. Crowdsourcing Features

Treering’s crowdsourcing tools include integrations with Facebook, Instagram, and Google Drive as well as shared photo folders. Teachers, parents, and students can email photographs from their devices directly to event folders in your school account. 

According to adviser Lauren Casteen, Yearbook Hero and leader of Treering’s Teaching Yearbook cohort, there are four reasons to crowdsource content:

  1. Equity: if you want your book to look like your school, your school needs to help you build your book.
  2. People are already familiar with documenting and sharing their lives via social media—it’s an easy next step.
  3. Your yearbook staff can’t be everywhere all the time.
  4. Less work for you! (This is our favorite.)

12. Monitoring Coverage

A big question we hear is, "Why would you want to tag student names when we're not doing an index?" Since our job as advisers is to cover all the students on campus, tagging is one way to track how many times students appear in the yearbook. It also helps you find out who is missing from your pages and craft strategies to include them.

13. Keyword Tagging

By using keywords such as event names and topics (e.g. AP Lit), your search just became that much more powerful, and the English folder less intimidating to navigate.

14. Find Carmen San Diego

Tagging by student name helps you easily find students within your web of folders.

15. Polls

Create polls to give a snapshot of the student body's preferences. Treering's software even makes the graphs for you. Expand on this or that-style questions or multiple choice ones by interviewing a respondent for more detail. You may be surprised why your star soccer player is a cat dad.

https://blog.treering.com/50-yearbook-survey-questions-better-polls/

Marketing Tips

The second semester is when we see surges in book sales. Here are some hacks to get more yearbooks in more hands.

16. Free Yearbook Flyers

The price is right. So is the message.

17. Use Your Printed Proof as Social Proof

Social proof is one way you can positively encourage others to support your program by buying a yearbook.

  • Show students, teachers, and parents how you are using the photos they submit by posting a PDF proof with their snaps in use
  • Share sneak peeks
  • Photograph your printed proof around campus as if it were a student (tag us!)
  • Video your yearbook team swooning over their work

Hacks for Yearbook Advisers

All of the above definitely apply to yearbook advisers and coordinators, and here are few extras because you are our people.

18. Free Webinars: Yearbook Club

A yearbook adviser PLC? Live yearbook training? Technology pro-grow? However you want to sell it to your admin, we have it. And it’s free. 

19. Styles

By establishing photo and text styles early on, you create a cohesive look for your yearbook. Because the font library continues to grow, it's nice to set some limits, especially with emerging designers!

20. Portrait Proofing with PDFs

Printing PDF proofs from the editor dashboard as soon as you get your portraits flowed is one quick way to ensure accuracy. Distribute them to the office staff and classroom or homeroom teachers for a double and triple check.

21. A List of Evergreen Content

Evergreen content for yearbooks is a collection of interview questions, infographic topics, and story ideas that can be used throughout the year. While we want to have a yearbook that reflects the current year and trends, having a timeless collection keeps your students working on interviews and photography and provides material to fill in on portrait pages, sports sections, and even in the index. 

https://blog.treering.com/evergreen-content-yearbook/

22. Supplemental Books

Sometimes club sports, special events, and alumni need a little extra. You can still attach a fundraiser, take advantage of our free design software, and enjoy all the other perks of making a Treering book: no minimums and a three-week turnaround from the day you submit.

  • Performing arts yearbook spread and cover for supplemental book
  • Hack for including clubs not on campus: create a supplemental book such as this scouting-themed book with pre-designed cover and layouts

Treering’s printed books for family reunions, church or neighborhood directories, scout troops, sport associations (rodeo, mountain bike, cheerleading, gymnastics), 4-H, school auctions, cookbooks, performing arts studios, first responders, and more.

23. Yearbook Hack Central: Treering Blog

(Shameless, we know!) We're glad you're here and hope you find more yearbook hacks by searching the blog or signing up for notifications when we post new content.

November 22, 2022

Crowdsource content for a more equitable yearbook

We see it all the time on our feeds: pics or it didn't happen. The same applies to your yearbook. According to adviser Lauren Casteen, Yearbook Hero and leader of Treering's Teaching Yearbook cohort, there are four reasons to crowdsource content:

  1. Equity: if you want your book to look like your school, your school needs to help you build your book.
  2. People are already familiar with documenting and sharing their lives via social media—it’s an easy next step.
  3. Your yearbook staff can’t be everywhere all the time.
  4. Less work for you!
Start here: two- and four-legged study buddies are an easy ask. (Treering Yearbooks theme used: Origami)

What Should You Crowdsource?

The short answer is anything: photographs, survey/poll responses, and stories. Here are some of our favorites:

Casteen puts it this way: "Everyone matters and has a story to tell. Storytelling is a way to incorporate different voices." Crowdsourcing for these stories is a start. Follow up with submissions with interviews to understand the process, history, or cause/effect of the photo.

If a Tree Falls in the Woods...

And no one shares a pic, no one will know you're crowdsourcing. Something like that.

To start and maintain a solid crowdsourcing effort, create a plan for a series of time-specific asks. For example, if you need band photos from the regional competition, reach out to the director and boosters before the event to prep them. Then follow up the next day. Think about your own camera roll: how long does it take your weekend to be swallowed up with the screenshots and snaps you take Monday through Friday?

This is an effective social post because it has an end date to create a sense of urgency and the call to action (survey link) is readily accessible.

Assess your Communication Channels

What tools does your school have in place to communicate with staff and students? RenWeb may not be the cutest, but if that's how your parents receive messages from the school, stay the course. Active social media accounts are also great ways to meet specific users, especially if the robotics team has its own Facebook group or the PTG uses theirs to solicit members.

Check out this article if you need to see some more winning social posts to help you crowdsource and sell more yearbooks.

How Treering Helps

Treering's crowdsourcing tools include integrations with Facebook, Instagram, and Google Drive as well as shared photo folders. Teachers, parents, and students can email photographs from their devices directly to the yearbook folders.

October 18, 2022

Why I stopped publishing senior quotes

Unpopular opinion: senior quotes are problematic because they are unoriginal and full of risk. Before you click away from this perceived pessimistic view, put on your journalist hat and look at the facts. This position is not an anti-expression rant but a push to develop original, authentic content for our yearbooks. Here’s how I replaced senior quotes 15 years ago. 

Three Reasons To Start a New Senior Tradition

1. Participation and Originality

A struggle we see from advisers is a small percentage of students submit their senior quote. Those who do use a quote from a movie, song lyric, or timestamp, not their own thoughts. That’s not journalism. These pop culture references may have a place in a module or personality profile elsewhere in the book if it relates to your theme.

2. Vetting Process

Do you know the periodic table? Are you fluent in slang, TikTok trends, drug euphemisms, and veiled sexual references? Does your district have a hard line on what is free vs. hate speech?

3. Senior Quotes Can Equate to Bad PR

A quick news search for "yearbook senior quotes" yields myriad results of senior quotes gone wrong. Allegations of bullying in the yearbook and “unlawful accessing” the online editor abound. Schools have even cut the pages from their books due to the quotes in print. 

Ideas to Replace Senior Quotes

Thanks for sticking with me. Below are ways to celebrate the seniors on your campus and capture their voices (rather than Michael Scott’s).

By including activities with your senior portraits, you are showcasing seniors' contributions.

Brag Sheets

If your seniors want to leave their proverbial mark, include their school contribution with their senior portrait. A Google Form listing all the activities, clubs, and teams offered on your campus makes it quick for students to click through. Partner with a department and ask for it to be the bell ringer or exit ticket for a day. 

You could also include class stats, such as athletic participation rate, percentage of students in leadership, and volunteer hours.

Carefully, Carla Zamora (12) and Dominic Hosley (12) examine the joints of their biomedical engineering project. They built and programmed the 263-piece working model to simulate the 27 bones in a human hand. "I'm into arthroplasty because so many people in my family have had joint replacement surgeries," Hosley said.

Include More Quotes With Expanded Captions Throughout the Book

If your yearbook program is journalistic, it should have storytelling and reporting at its heart. Expanded captions include direct quotes. By using them, you are creating a yearbook full of original voices and senior, junior, eighth grader, etc. quotes. Here’s how it works:

  • Identification information: who is doing what when and for what purpose? (Use present tense.)
  • Secondary information: what is something you wouldn’t know from looking at the photo? (Use past tense.) This could be the result of the play or experiment pictured or the relationship between the students.
  • Quote and attribution: include a direct quote from the subject that adds emotion, opinion, or information that isn’t obvious. Identify the quote with last name (grade) said. 

Create a Survey Based on Thematic Coverage

Theme is king in yearbook. You selected it because it was the guiding story and look for your book. When you are developing your theme, create interview questions using this language.

For example, Rock Academy’s theme “Give + Take” yielded interview questions such as “What’s your take?” or “Give me five…” (songs, class activities, places you go on campus, etc.). Pro tip: use an idiom dictionary to search for such spin-offs for your theme.

Integrating quotes throughout your book makes all students heard. (Treering theme used: Spectrum.)

For their book “Speak Life,” Sequoia High had a running module throughout the book called “Speak Your Piece” with quotes from students about a specific moment. 

By offering 1/8 page ads for free and charging $75 for 1/4 pages and $120 for 1/2 pages, this yearbook team made $420 from this one spread of senior tributes.

Sell Ad Space

Yup. I said that. When you pay to play, there is a little more consideration and propriety. Some schools offer 1/8 page to all their seniors and give parents the option to pay for upgraded space. (You'll have to get creative with the alphabetizing.) Others create a section with the index to feature ads. 

With Treering Yearbooks, families also have two free customizable pages that print only in their book.

Stay the Course

Full disclosure: my first year, there was a little heat from students and a petition. By year two, students (of all grades) saw their voices in every corner of the yearbook, and no one questioned it. The standard response became "We have senior quotes on every spread in the yearbook."

October 18, 2022

Why I stopped publishing senior quotes

Unpopular opinion: senior quotes are problematic because they are unoriginal and full of risk. Before you click away from this perceived pessimistic view, put on your journalist hat and look at the facts. This position is not an anti-expression rant but a push to develop original, authentic content for our yearbooks. Here’s how I replaced senior quotes 15 years ago. 

Three Reasons To Start a New Senior Tradition

1. Participation and Originality

A struggle we see from advisers is a small percentage of students submit their senior quote. Those who do use a quote from a movie, song lyric, or timestamp, not their own thoughts. That’s not journalism. These pop culture references may have a place in a module or personality profile elsewhere in the book if it relates to your theme.

2. Vetting Process

Do you know the periodic table? Are you fluent in slang, TikTok trends, drug euphemisms, and veiled sexual references? Does your district have a hard line on what is free vs. hate speech?

3. Senior Quotes Can Equate to Bad PR

A quick news search for "yearbook senior quotes" yields myriad results of senior quotes gone wrong. Allegations of bullying in the yearbook and “unlawful accessing” the online editor abound. Schools have even cut the pages from their books due to the quotes in print. 

Ideas to Replace Senior Quotes

Thanks for sticking with me. Below are ways to celebrate the seniors on your campus and capture their voices (rather than Michael Scott’s).

By including activities with your senior portraits, you are showcasing seniors' contributions.

Brag Sheets

If your seniors want to leave their proverbial mark, include their school contribution with their senior portrait. A Google Form listing all the activities, clubs, and teams offered on your campus makes it quick for students to click through. Partner with a department and ask for it to be the bell ringer or exit ticket for a day. 

You could also include class stats, such as athletic participation rate, percentage of students in leadership, and volunteer hours.

Carefully, Carla Zamora (12) and Dominic Hosley (12) examine the joints of their biomedical engineering project. They built and programmed the 263-piece working model to simulate the 27 bones in a human hand. "I'm into arthroplasty because so many people in my family have had joint replacement surgeries," Hosley said.

Include More Quotes With Expanded Captions Throughout the Book

If your yearbook program is journalistic, it should have storytelling and reporting at its heart. Expanded captions include direct quotes. By using them, you are creating a yearbook full of original voices and senior, junior, eighth grader, etc. quotes. Here’s how it works:

  • Identification information: who is doing what when and for what purpose? (Use present tense.)
  • Secondary information: what is something you wouldn’t know from looking at the photo? (Use past tense.) This could be the result of the play or experiment pictured or the relationship between the students.
  • Quote and attribution: include a direct quote from the subject that adds emotion, opinion, or information that isn’t obvious. Identify the quote with last name (grade) said. 

Create a Survey Based on Thematic Coverage

Theme is king in yearbook. You selected it because it was the guiding story and look for your book. When you are developing your theme, create interview questions using this language.

For example, Rock Academy’s theme “Give + Take” yielded interview questions such as “What’s your take?” or “Give me five…” (songs, class activities, places you go on campus, etc.). Pro tip: use an idiom dictionary to search for such spin-offs for your theme.

Integrating quotes throughout your book makes all students heard. (Treering theme used: Spectrum.)

For their book “Speak Life,” Sequoia High had a running module throughout the book called “Speak Your Piece” with quotes from students about a specific moment. 

By offering 1/8 page ads for free and charging $75 for 1/4 pages and $120 for 1/2 pages, this yearbook team made $420 from this one spread of senior tributes.

Sell Ad Space

Yup. I said that. When you pay to play, there is a little more consideration and propriety. Some schools offer 1/8 page to all their seniors and give parents the option to pay for upgraded space. (You'll have to get creative with the alphabetizing.) Others create a section with the index to feature ads. 

With Treering Yearbooks, families also have two free customizable pages that print only in their book.

Stay the Course

Full disclosure: my first year, there was a little heat from students and a petition. By year two, students (of all grades) saw their voices in every corner of the yearbook, and no one questioned it. The standard response became "We have senior quotes on every spread in the yearbook."