Design
Looking for inspiration, design tricks, how to make a great cover, promoting your yearbook and engaging your community?
Most recent
Yearbook design hierarchy
Design hierarchy of a yearbook spread refers to the arrangement of elements on a page in order of importance, with the most important element drawing immediate attention and receiving support from secondary and tertiary elements. When you apply these design principles, you are taking your readers on a journey across each yearbook spread by telling them where to begin and where to exit each spread through visual cues. Sound complicated? No worries, we'll break it down below.
Dominant Elements
Think, "We're #1!" The dominant elements in yearbook hierarchy are headlines, the dominant photo package, and a subheadline. The dominant elements are just that: they dominate the most real estate on the spread. It's from them the rest of the content builds.
Headline
The headline is the most important element on a page and serves as a brief content summary. It should be attention-grabbing and provide an overview of the page's content.
Dominant Photo
This is self-explanatory: the largest photo on the spread is the dominant one. It draws the eye. It connects to the headline. It sets the tone for the entire spread. The best dominant photos are storytelling or action shots.
Subhead
The subhead is a secondary headline that provides more detail and context to the main headline. It can also be used to break up yearbook spreads into smaller sections, or modules.
Secondary Elements
Your secondary elements build from your dominant ones. Think of them as a great ensemble cast.
Photos
For most, photographs are the most important part of a yearbook. The individual images and their positioning on the spread can help further illustrate the page topic and make the page more visually appealing.
Quick tips:
- Eyes should look toward the center of the spread, not off the page
- Similar photos should be in proximity to one another
Tertiary Design Elements
If your headline and photographs did their job, readers will swoop in to enjoy your captions, copy, and extras.
Captions
These beauties provide context and information about the photos on a page, therefore they should be near their respective photograph. While they should be concise and well-written, it's easy to get cliche: "Tomás Bernal (7) enjoys his lunch." Start with the 5 Ws and then up your caption game by adding expanded captions.
Body Copy or Yearbook Stories
This is the main text on a page and provides the details and information about the subject being covered. It should be well-written, easy to read, and relevant to the headline and dominant topic of the spread. Often, when a dominant photo is of the storytelling variety, it will complement it and further explain its significance.
Sometimes, an "ident caption" will suffice. This is a list of names of students pictured, including their grade. In the middle school book below, the yearbook team used ident captions to outline the event program from the annual fundraiser.
Pull Quotes
Pull quotes are quotes from the body copy that are set off visually and used to highlight important or interesting information or one-off quotes from a student. They have both visual and verbal significance because they highlight the spread's topic with a unique POV. They can also add to the overall theme by bringing in theme elements.
Graphics and Design Elements
Like everything in yearbook design hierarchy, graphics and design elements, such as borders, backgrounds, and page numbers should be intentional. It's easy to get out of hand with Treering's graphics library, so that's why our design team cultivated 300-ish fully editable themes and color palettes for you. The purpose is to make the page more visually appealing and easier to navigate while telling the story of your year.
The hierarchy of a yearbook spread can vary depending on the page's content, and following this basic structure can help ensure that the page is well-organized and easy to read. If you're teaching yearbook or leading a club, use it
- As a checklist for students who are beginning to design
- For a scavenger hunt to see who can identify elements on a spread in a magazine or another school's yearbook
- To build your program by strengthening yearbook hierarchy in each design
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We love how this school asked students from each grade level to come to the photoshoot in a white shirt and jeans.
Do you have more easy ideas to fill pages? Share them via social and tag us!
Teaching yearbook: graphic design
In my credential program, I missed the comprehensive graphic design, marketing, journalism, editing and proofreading, photojournalism, contract negotiation, and volunteer management track that would prepare me to be a yearbook educator. Over the years, an idea library on my classroom shelves slowly came about: other school's yearbooks, folders of magazine spreads worth emulating, Treering's Big Idea Book and Marketing Un-Stumped, plus gobs of digital files. If your yearbook advising journey is relatable, try these small changes that will make an impact on your book's visual look.
This blog was adapted from Yearbook Hero's Lauren Casteen's Teaching Yearbook: Graphic Design webinar. If you're interested in joining this professional community to grow your yearbook pedagogy or to score some PD hours, register for one of our free webinars on Zoom.
Graphic Design Self-Analysis
On a scale of 1-5, how do you currently feel about teaching graphic design? Keep in mind teaching and doing are two different skill sets.
Mild, Medium, Or Spicy?
Below are some suggestions based on your self-reflection. This year, you may be Mild, and next year, you'll apply some of Casteen's tips and be Medium with a hint of Spicy.
Yearbook Theme
A theme helps keep your yearbook unified so it doesn’t look like a different person did every page (even if they did).
A theme does a lot of the graphic design work for you: it's like giving your students fill-in-the-blank notes as opposed to having them copy them by hand.
Lauren Casteen
Mild
Choose a yearbook theme from Treering's Theme Gallery. Commit to it by using it for your whole book: each theme package includes layouts, backgrounds, and graphics you can mix and match. Using powerful tools such as auto page layout, you can create a beautiful book while learning.
When you're ready, move to Medium.
Medium
Casteen falls into the Medium category: she says they start with a Treering graphics package that supports the verbal theme, and then they adapt it. The 2022 Polaris team wanted a newspaper feel to go with "A Year to Remember." The staff blended QWERTY, which had a modern media feel, and Venture, which is filled with vintage items and textures, to create their book.
Spicy
You can design your own theme. Have students come up with a color palette using an online palette generator; use Treering’s font bank to match fonts. To build a unique look, consider including student drawings or artwork.
A style guide will help your designers remain focused. It will also help you, as an adviser, provide detailed feedback on how to improve the design. Here's Casteen's.
One Graphic Design Concept at a Time
Since graphic design is an entire professional field, and you could spend beyond four years in college studying it, there is entirely too much graphic theory and practice to complete in one semester or year of yearbook. By breaking it down, you can focus on what's essential for your team this year and build as you and your team grow. Here's how to do it:
Find the Golden Ratio blog and others on the design page of the blog.
Balancing First-Year and Returning Yearbookers
If you have returners on your team, some of them may be Medium or Spicy, and that's OK. Now that you have some scaffolding, tailor your projects for your student by skill level.
You can revisit each topic each year with your returning staff members to make it more challenging. For example, maybe your newcomers are choosing a pre-made layout instead of doing it themselves, or maybe they are designing a layout for a module rather than an entire yearbook spread. Focusing on one specific skill at a time makes it easier for you as the teacher to differentiate.
Copy From the Masters
The masters are "masters" for a reason. Whether it is a magazine ad or a social graphic, inspiration is out there. You can apply a photo treatment you saved from Pinterest on a divider page or emulate a car ad layout in your yearbook.
Get Started in Graphic Design
Lastly, here are the action items from Casteen's session. Select one for your launch plan:
- Pick a theme if you haven’t (or maybe choose a few for your students to narrow down)
- Look through Treering blog articles to find a focus skill to teach
- Make yourself a Sandbox page and start playing around
- Find inspiration for a page to replicate
If you're interested in joining another of our working webinars, check out the entire Yearbook Club webinar schedule.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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:
- Equity: if you want your book to look like your school, your school needs to help you build your book.
- People are already familiar with documenting and sharing their lives via social media—it’s an easy next step.
- Your yearbook staff can’t be everywhere all the time.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
Portrait perfection for your yearbook
Yearbook portraits comprise up to 40% of your book. Pause and contemplate that for a sec: row after row of awkward head tilts and half smiles with the same speckled background your mom had in the 70s fill the bulk of your pages. If you want to change up your layout and use the space to add additional content and cover even more students, we have a blog for that. This one, however, will help you nail the core of your people section.
Work with Your Photographer
Treering’s portrait autoflow works with any photographer.
Tweet
If you’re not the picture day coordinator (lucky!), meet your school photographer and find out when you can expect to get access to your portraits. The two-to-three weeks between makeup day and when proofs arrive should be a part of your workflow. Spend that time prepping:
- An accurate roster
- Fall event yearbook spreads
- Poll, survey, and academics content you will incorporate in your portrait section
Extra credit: learn the how, what, and why of portrait files in the Treering Help Center.
Portrait Pages: Faster Than a Cup of Coffee?
Treering’s engineers know we have a diverse group of users, so they included automation—such as portrait autoflow—in the arsenal and DIY features. Absent and new students can be flowed in after the fact, and your portrait pages will automatically re-alphabetize. What a relief!
PDF Proofs for Portrait Pages
Editors tell us the secret to an accurate portrait section is utilizing the free PDF proofs in your editor dashboard. Some of the ways schools check names are
- Distribute proofs to classroom teachers to ensure all their class is pictured
- Post PDF proofs in the lunch room so students can sign off on their names and grades
- Work with school administration to comb through portrait proofs and match them to the school’s database
- Share PDFs proofs at a PTA/PTG/PTO meeting for parents to check (this is also a hot marketing tip)
The more eyes that you have checking the spelling of names and making sure that the photo and name match up correctly the better.
Pages to put in the yearbook
It’s go time: a blank yearbook ladder is in front of you and you need to know which pages to put in the yearbook. Do you take a chronological approach and cover events as they happen? Or should you create a sectional yearbook and handle coverage topically? Did you even know there were options beyond this is what we’ve always done? Below are samples of how other schools have done it and their rationale.
Put Your Yearbook Pages Chronologically
Sequoia high school’s yearbook uses 50 of its 148 pages to cover academics, student life, and special events on spreads. The two spreads below show what happened in the month of January and cover the literary food festival, spring musical auditions, lunchtime candids, as well as coursework from economics, Spanish, drafting, logic, yearbook, and graphic design classes. These spreads feature over 40 students and five faculty members.
There’s no rule on how to put pages in your yearbook chronologically: we’ve seen schools organize their yearbooks monthly, quarterly, and seasonally. Treering's Seasons of Our Lives yearbook theme makes it easy to put pages chronologically in your yearbook.
Feeling ambitious? Weekly chronological coverage can be of value to larger or K-12 schools within modules dedicated to academics, club activities and meetings, plus a sporting event of the week.
Chronological cover yearbook coverage helps keep you organized by:
- Structuring your coverage: you can’t cover an event after it’s passed
- Building in mini-deadlines: because you have a structure, you can build due dates and workflows
- Telling the story of the year as it unfolds
Use Traditional Yearbook Sections
Tradition works for a reason. Done right, yearbooks show the complete picture (pun intended) of how students contribute to their communities. It’s a visual reminder of how each story weaves together to become a group narrative. Yearbooks are definitely worth bonding over.
By using sectional, or traditional, coverage to put together your yearbook, pages are placed in topical categories. We know to find Start with Hello in the club section and volleyball in sports.
Traditional sections to put in your yearbook include
People
Student portraits (organized by class, homeroom, or grade), staff, and personality profiles tend to dominate yearbooks. Consider breaking up coverage by adding in siblings, outside-of-school hobbies, and international students.
Student Life
All the big, schoolwide moments plus the small distinctive ones (think homecoming, Read Across America, hot cocoa in Mrs. Cruz’s classroom, Dot Day, lawn chair lunches, etc.) make their home in the student life section.
Organizations
Clubs and committees that comprise a large portion of student life may warrant their own section. If most of your clubs are inactive beyond a monthly lunch, consider keeping club activities in the student life portion or feature the group photos in the reference section.
Sports
Remember, action shots have a place, as do club sports, pre-game rituals, and scoreboards.
Academics
If you’re not putting a “Life in…” page, consider grouping academics coverage by grade or subject. Ensure daily classroom activities, as well as holiday parties, are included in the coverage.
Reference
Put pages devoted to the index, group photos (club and team), and ads in the reference section of the yearbook.
If you need additional inspiration for which pages to put in your yearbook, check out these sample ladders from other schools and adapt them to fit yours.
Yearbook hero Kirsten Megaro tells a complete story
Treering Yearbook Heroes is a monthly feature focusing on yearbook tips and tricks.
In our first-ever parent contest, Treering Yearbooks asked parents to capture and share their child’s unique POV. Homeschool mom Kirsten Megaro from Netcong, NJ created a spread to celebrate the growth in all areas of her three kids' lives: educational accomplishments, deepening friendships and family relationships, creative projects, and current hobbies and activities.
How did you decide what to include on your custom pages?
Our homeschool co-op offers a mix of core and extracurricular classes. We love how our yearbook documents the classes and field trips we enjoy with our group each year. The custom pages allow us to see a wider view of our year.
I like to include a casual portrait of each kid from the year as a focal point, then use larger text boxes to give an overview of the main activities we participated in during the year. I fill in the rest of the spread with some of our favorite photos with captions to share the accomplishments they had, hobbies they pursued, important people in our lives, and field trips we took throughout the year.
The judges loved the color scheme as well as the repeating elements of the rounded rectangles.
I love playing around with layout: moving pictures, adding frames, making it organized, but just a little quirky too.
How do your kids help tell their stories?
We take so many pictures that it’s hard to narrow them down. I usually start by choosing my favorites that give a good overview of our year, then ask my kids what information and pictures they want to include to remember for the future.
What advice would you give to another parent who is just getting started?
Start simple: use a template for your layout—there are a lot of great options! Drop your pictures in and add a few captions. Add a creative touch here or there to start, and each year, you’ll get more and more confident and capable of showing your personality and style through your pages.
Yearbook hero Paul Nisely made us cry
Treering Yearbook Heroes is a monthly feature focusing on yearbook tips and tricks.
In our first-ever parent contest, Treering Yearbooks asked parents to capture and share their child’s unique POV. Self-described Band Dad Paul Nisely from Charlotte, NC entered the senior tribute he created for his son, Jason.
Paul featured his son’s involvement as a trumpet player in both the marching band and the school’s band as well as the friendships he’s built and maintained throughout 9-12 grade. On the right-facing page, he created the show-stopper that had us all choked up.
How did you decide what to include on your custom pages?
I have been taking a first day of school photo of my son in the same spot in front of our house every year since kindergarten and wanted those memories on one page. I have seen this done many times before.
In addition to seeing the changes in your child, you can also see the changes in the background scenery. We had to remove the brick edging because it was a fire ant nest which we realized after a photo. The different hairstyles, clothes, and backpacks show how much he has changed and how quickly the years go by. Every time I look at that page it makes me tear up.
Paul, let me tell you, there was a lot of emotion from the parents on the panel after seeing your spread. A reverent hush permeated the meeting, and then we read your story.
I love telling a story and getting emotional reactions with my photos. I was a newspaper photographer and went to school for photography and absolutely love seeing “visual moments” and documenting them. When the marching band season is finished I love putting together the photo book for that season. Even though my son is graduating I have already told the band directors I would love to keep taking photos of the band and making more keepsake photo books for the kids and their families.
Since you’re also a professional photographer, will you share some tips?
Take a lot of photos! You can’t run out of film: it's all digital now. Be there for the moments that are important for your child and capture them. Be patient with your child and be patient when taking photos. Then tell a story with those photos.
Yearbook hero Grace Montemar's show-stopping design
Treering Yearbook Heroes is a monthly feature focusing on yearbook tips and tricks.
In March, Treering Yearbooks announced its 2022 #TreeringMemoriesMatter Design Contest for yearbook advisers, coordinators, and editors to share their unique perspectives from their campus community. It’s time to meet the winners and glean their best practices for yearbook spread design.
Grace Montemar is the Yearbook Club Adviser from Edison Regional Gifted Center in Chicago, IL. Her team earned first place in the middle school division for their “Aesthetic” spread. The reporting and design distinguished this spread.
Tell us about this show-stopper.
While we like to include several recurring spreads that appear in our school’s yearbook each year, we still like to introduce a few new features as well. This fresh feature allowed Yearbook Club to spotlight classmates from various grades whose fashion sense stood out from the crowd. The students who were invited to participate enjoyed answering a brief questionnaire that helped to illustrate their distinctive style.
How does Edison RGC design the book?
I typically like starting with a general template but then customizing it to suit the needs of the specific spread. Some of my yearbook students prefer creating a layout from scratch, which takes much longer. But if they’re committed to doing it this way (and time allows for it), then it’s totally fine.
I also try to manage expectations upfront so they understand that there will usually be a lot of polishing involved before their spread is fully ready for publishing in the yearbook. One thing that my yearbook students love is seeing their names attached to their work. It gives them a sense of pride to see their byline displaying their name and grade on any spreads that they’re involved in.
What does your role look like as a club adviser?
My responsibilities include recruiting and training the 6th-8th graders who join Yearbook Club, running the weekly meetings, empowering the students to help build the ladder and decide content, art directing them in designing their layouts, and helping them to proofread, edit, and write copy.
I also handle the marketing aspects––sending announcements to key channels for sharing with the intent of promoting sales with parents, as well as encouraging photo submissions.
How do you gather photos?
Pre-pandemic, the majority of photos were taken by myself, and/or I recruited parents who had an eye for photography to cover events that I couldn’t attend. With in-person events slowly starting to happen this school year, I’ve been able to resume taking some photos but we’re still relying more on community submissions than we have in past years. In order to keep the submissions coming, we periodically request specific photos throughout the year (to avoid receiving an onslaught of images too late in the production timeline).
What advice would you give to another person who is just getting started?
Congrats on accepting your role with the yearbook! It can feel overwhelming to take on this endeavor but you’ll do just fine. Here are some tips to help you:
- Take things one step at a time––but don’t wait. If you work on the yearbook little by little, regularly, and continuously, it’ll be much easier to produce, as opposed to cramming and rushing everything all at once at the end.
- Ask for help from your community when you need it. Need more photo submissions? Be sure to ask for help from the room parents and PTO in spreading the word. Still trying to recruit students? Ask for help from the principal or certain teachers in drumming up interest. You’d be surprised who’s willing to help (and how) if you just ask.
Winners of the 2022 #treeringmemoriesmatter contest
Treering Yearbooks is pleased to announce the winners of our 2022 #TreeringMemoriesMatter Design Contest. Yearbook editors from across the US submitted their favorite yearbook spreads from the 2021-2022 school year.
First Place Winners
Elementary School: Del Norte Heights Elementary School, El Paso, TX
The blended coverage of a teacher-organized remembrance ceremony of 9/11's 20th anniversary and a celebration of one of America's most popular children's books captured the "return to normalcy," Yearbook Coordinator, Elyse Hernandez said.
The Del Norte Team earned second place in our 2021 contest with their spread on face mask fashion.
"As we returned to our classrooms in person, students embraced the return to normalcy, and being able to create traditions and celebrate our students is one of the many facets that make Del Norte Heights an amazing learning center," Hernandez said. "That is why our Treering Memories really matter!"
Middle School: Edison Regional Gifted Center, Chicago, IL
This show-stopper spread is a strong example of inclusivity and trends (hello botanical design and pop culture). Notice how each student has individualized interview questions. We also love that the cutouts aren't true COBs, which adds to the magazine feel.
High School: Grandview High School, Grandview, WA
Student editor Jazmine Richey created this spread which incorporates both theme elements and the here-and-now of the campus: a state-tournament appearance, the return of fans in the stands, and a new building. We love the modular look.
"The [red] line represents not only the presence of the Red Line of Equity in our everyday lives but the beginning of the creation of traditions here at GHS," Lilly Kassinger, the student who nominated Richey's work, said.
And the QR code? It links to a highlight reel of the season.
Each of the first-place winners will share their tips and tricks in upcoming blogs.
Second Place Winners
Elementary School: Lois Lenski Elementary, Littleton, CO
Middle School: Lennox Middle School, Inglewood, CA
High School: Pennyroyal Area Christian Home Educators of Kentucky (PACHEK), Hopkinsville, KY
Third Place Winners
Elementary School: Orion Alternative and Mandarin Immersion, Redwood City, CA
Middle School: Mountain School, Soquel, CA
High School: Freedom High Magnet School, Albuquerque, NM
QR Code is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.
2022 #TreeringMemoriesMatter Runners Up
Abington Friends School
Ardrey Kell Band Booster
Blue Ridge Academy
Bremerton High School
Cetronia Elementary School
Chateauguay Valley Regional
Chester W. Morrison Elementary
Christ Lutheran
Evergreen Valley High School
Gregory-Portland High School
Lakeside Christian School
Lyman High School
New Traditions
North Elementary School
Okaloosa Stem Academy
Orange County Classical Academy
Perry Lecompton Middle School
Premont I.S.D./Premont Collegiate High School/Premont Early College Academy
Presidio Middle School
Sky Ranch Middle
Southeast Academy High School
St. Cloud Christian school
St. Xavier Catholic School
The Learning Connection (TLC)
Thomas Rivera Elementary
Villagers
Virginia's Governor's School for the Arts
The judges, a panel of yearbook professionals, graphic designers, parents, and journalism educators, thank everyone who entered the 2022 #TreeringMemoriesMatter Design Contest.
Three yearbook colophon ideas
What is a colophon anyway? Publishers include this vital piece to record production notes and sometimes acknowledgments. Since your yearbook is a historical document, including a colophon adds professionalism to your publication. But it doesn’t have to be boring! Below are three examples of yearbook colophons that include theme details, shout-outs, and yearbook staffing information.
Essential Components for Your Yearbook Colophon
- Title of yearbook and theme information: include any behind the design information
- Book details: the number of pages, cover type, and paper weight
- Design specs: font names sizes and use cases
- Photography credits: Identify your portrait photographer, staff photographers, and any volunteer super parents who contributed
- Software tools: list which applications you used to build your book
- Publisher information: name of the publisher and the names of the publishing staff who helped
Thematic Colophons
Both of these colophons leverage their themes (Stay Gold and Speak Life, respectively) with the headlines as well as the graphics. (The actual copy of their colophons is below for you to use.)
A Bold Colophon
We love this one because it features the yearbook team, gives the book details in an easy-to-read format, and both editors have space to say thank you.
Yearbook Colophon Template
To create a quick colophon, copy and paste the following in your yearbook. Make it your own by giving behind-the-design details.
[Yearbook name] is produced by [School Name] in [City, State] and published by Treering Yearbooks in San Mateo, CA. The [hard- and/or softcover] yearbooks are [matte or glossy] finish [with upgraded embossing or foil]. The book's [number] pages are printed in full color on 100lb. sustainably sourced paper—the Treering standard. We used the Treering app for the layouts; [if applicable, list software used to make photo illustrations]. The theme art is [theme name from Treering] and [name] designed the cover. Headlines are [font and size] with subheadings in [font and size]. Body copy is [font and size]. [Photographer] took the school portraits and [parents, coaches, non-yearbook students] contributed [team, event, and/or candid] photos.
What should I do with all my child's art?
Dear Mama, you're not alone. Many of us look at the creations in our children’s portfolio and think, “Now what?” The fridge is covered. The more ambitious among us swap out art in frames, while others load up bin after bin (or just chuck it in the bin). We have an art display idea to help you preserve your child's memories.
How to Photograph Your Child’s Art
The number one rule in photography applies here: get your lighting right! Eliminate shadows and flares by having multiple points of lighting. Natural lighting by a window is best.
Second, you’re going to want to make sure your camera angle is congruent to your art. (See, that high school geometry class has real world application!) This gets rid of distortion. You can make slight adjustments using your camera app.
Personalized Pages
Now that your child’s art is digitized, do something with it!
Since every Treering yearbook comes with two, free personalized pages that print only in your yearbook, you can create a mini-gallery to display paintings, sculptures, and sketches without giving away more real estate in your home. (You can also add more pages for homework, family vacations, and events.)
Fast forward to high school graduation: all your yearbooks are lined up and you can show off your child's progression in penmanship, Scouting, or science fair.
Instead of suffering from mom guilt, you can display your child's year in art forever.