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: 

1. 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. 
2. 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.

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.

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

1. Title of yearbook and theme information: include any behind the design information
2. Book details: the number of pages, cover type, and paper weight
3. Design specs: font names sizes and use cases
4. Photography credits: Identify your portrait photographer, staff photographers, and any volunteer super parents who contributed
5. Software tools: list which applications you used to build your book
6. 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.

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.

Personal anecdote: In 1996, I joined my first yearbook staff. Shout out to Mr. Wayne Weightman who took a chance on a loud introvert and turned her into a creator. Fast forward a quarter-century (sheesh) and his yearbook design lessons are still impacting students—some of whom are now educators—and scores of creators.

The Easiest Element: Spacing

One pica was the standard back in the day when orange wax pencils and cropping squares were the norms. Each spread was designed on grid paper measured in picas. Below is an example of one pica standard yearbook spacing. It's clean. It's traditional. It's fine.

Contrast that with tight spacing. This is one-half pica (the design equivalent of red stilettos). Your spread just had a glow up.

The Dominant Element: Hierarchy in Yearbook Design

Hierarchy tells our buyers what’s important, and for all you ELA teachers, it’s the outline of the spread. Spoiler alert: size matters.

The yearbook design lesson here is to immediately attract your reader’s attention with a dominant image or module. Use the golden spiral to build off your dominant. Use this ready-made yearbook design lesson to help launch your discussion with your students.

1. Photographs

The most interesting, story-telling, awe-inspiring photo should be dominant on your spread. Connect your headline to this image. You can build off your dominant photograph to fill your spread. 

2. Headline

Advertising genius David Ogilvy said, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” 

Since a headline is our entry point, it should connect yearbook buyers with the focus of the spread. Avoid “Football” when every photo pictures football–your buyers are smarter than that. If you must spell it out, use the folio. Appropriate puns, alliteration, and rhymes are literary techniques to use.

3. Body copy

My yearbook students once tried to 86 captions because “no one reads them.” Another Mr. Weightman yearbook lesson: “If they were worth reading, people would.” Ouch. (And true.)

Lessons centered around the art of open-ended questions made interviewing more of a conversation. Students would develop 10 questions and always end the interview with “Is there anything else I could have asked?”

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, people did read those captions.

If you’re just getting started, practice using anecdotal quotes to fill in captions and add detail. Captions should include facts and sensory details while identifying the subject of the photograph and their grade. More writing lessons abound in the Treering Yearbooks’ free curriculum.

The Fun Elements: the Acronym You and Your Students will Never Forget

Shout out to another design influencer: Robin Williams (not the genie). She’s a proponent of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity—master these four things, and everything you touch will be design gold. (I’ll give you one second more to figure out the acronym.) Teach these design elements individually, then combine them for the ultimate yearbook design lesson.

Contrast

Pair a bold font with a condensed one. Use opposite sides of the color wheel. Get crazy with font size (within reason). These design elements teach your reader where to look, and when used in concert with hierarchy, tell your students’ stories in an easy-to-follow manner.

Other ways to create contrast include shape (horizontal vs. vertical) and weight (thick vs. thin).

Repetition

From cover to cover, your book should look cohesive. Every layout will not be the same. I repeat, every layout does not have to be the same! Colors, fonts, sizes, and design elements should be consistent throughout your book. Remember, your theme is the brand, and your book is the platform by which you will develop it.

Alignment

Design is intentional. On your yearbook spreads, align

• Copy
• Photographs
• Quote packages

Proximity

Put the things that go together, together. This seems like a no-brainer, and yet, it’s a yearbook design lesson worth refreshing year after year. 

Yearbook design lessons are something you can teach throughout the year. Pin your favorite ideas (or steal some of ours).

This is the time we often find ourselves reflecting on moments or trends that defined the year: countdowns dominate TV and radio, your Insta feed is filled with top nine collages, and influencers hype up-and-coming trends. Because the yearbook has the potential to be a campus influencer, below are just a couple of things to consider documenting in yours so students can look back and reminisce. It's easy to add trends and events that defined the year in the definitive archive of academia: your yearbook.

Current events

Add a trend timeline or spread so students can remember historic events, recall how most students chose to tuck in their t-shirts, or laugh at the social media craze during that time. 

When it comes to including historic events to include in your school’s yearbook, it can be overwhelming about which ones to choose. When considering a year-defining moment, consider the impact it had on your local student body.

Natural disasters are also worth including in your year-end coverage. However, editors must do so while also keeping the sensitivity of the issue in mind. Did your school set up a donation drive to help victims of a tornado or hurricane that devastated another area of the country? Was your campus directly impacted?

Finding a local angle is a technique journalists often use when deciding how they plan to cover a specific event and it’s a tool yearbook editors can use as well. After all, you are a journalist who is documenting each school year!

Fashion trends

Historic moments aren’t the only element that defines a school year. Fashion is another key component that can help illustrate a certain time period as many students use this as an outlet to express themselves. To help determine the latest trends, a great first step is turning to Pinterest or Instagram. From there, have your yearbook staff find students who emulate some of those fads.

You could also assign an Outfit of the Day (#OOTD) photographer to capture students walking into school. Then, in your yearbook, you could feature seasonal styles. (Parents also love to submit these photos, so ask away!)

If you do a more traditional fashion spread, be sure to include:

• Mom jeans
• Chunky soled shoes, especially Dr. Martens
• White shoes
• Athletic gear
• Graphic Ts
• The return of the mullet
• Bucket hats (which we hear will be "out" come summer)
• Over-sized sweaters
• 90s style: neon, flannel, wide-legged pants
• Friendship bracelets

Social media trends

In addition to fashion, you can also consider incorporating social media trends that were popular over the past school year. Who knew TikTok would take off like it did? Remember when customizing your background and picking out songs for your MySpace page was all the rage? We do! Be sure to include some of the dances, trends, or popular songs students may be using on their own TikTok pages.

Students will love looking back at these memories 10 years from now, and their kids will love it even more!

When “outsiders” think of yearbooks, they imagine little beyond the portrait pages. They see the obligatory blue background and big grins that accompany a moment in time many of us, as students, dreaded. (C’mon, we all didn’t receive the Glamor Shots by Deb experience!) Since this is a part of students’ permanent record, it's a necessary component. It is a part of the historical record of the school year. It’s also not our students’ favorite. Long ago, this adviser decided to decrease the size of yearbook portraits, while increasing specialized content. Here are three ideas to break up your portrait pages by adding rich, personal content.

1. By the Numbers

Use stats and surveys to provide a quantifiable portrait of the students pictured on your pages. Begin by understanding what is important to your students and then ask questions. For example, if your school’s focus is on health and wellness, break down how students and staff contribute to that goal by including content such as

• The number of miles each grade ran in the morning running club
• How many pieces of fruit the cafeteria distributed
• What percentage of students participate in dance, martial arts, or other athletic pursuits

Pair the numbers with photographs of students engaging in the activities and quotes for an even more personal approach. What does it mean to be a part of a community so encouraging of physical activity? How do students balance their school work with tournaments and performances?

2. Keep Content Class-y

Grade spreads in your portrait section are ideal for academics or class-specific coverage. Highlight the unifying aspects of school life, such as class trips or advisory periods, and then ask students about their individual experiences with each. Grade sections could also include:

• Surveys about their favorite subject
• Class color day photos
• Academics coverage by grade level
• Class contribution to the annual fundraiser
• School hacks or advice by upper grades

3. Get Personal with Portraits

Personality profiles and student life modules both create opportunities for an inclusive yearbook by targeting lesser known students or students with interests outside school-sponsored arts and athletics. These content modules add voices to the portrait section of your yearbook!

• Quote bars
• Ten things to do before graduation
• Cribs
• Fill in the blanks
• Cars
• Trending now
• Hang out places on campus
• Letters to my younger self

Take advantage of the additional space you'll create by shrinking portraits to pull out more content from your student body.

It all started with a yurt. A mom on campus posted a photo of her daughters in front of their temporary home in a field. As a part of their Sukkot observance, they lived, ate, and gave thanks in the yurt for nearly a week. After asking around, three other families on campus celebrated similarly. This sparked something in our yearbook program: who else lives a life about which we know little? (Answer: everyone!) And this became the catalyst to broadening the scope of our off-campus student life coverage. Read on for tips on inclusive coverage for diverse holidays and celebrations that reflect the individuals in your halls.

Make Celebrations Individualized

When we work with our students to learn from one another, we model and facilitate courageous conversations. Many of us parents grew up with the adage: politics and religion never make for polite conversation. By focusing your interviews on the individual—versus the religious or cultural practice—you will see it through his/her eyes.

That said, it is never one student’s job to be the “ambassador” for their faith or home country. That’s why we prepared this list of questions to focus on the individual’s celebration. (Just think about how even members of your extended family celebrate birthdays differently!) The narrative that will unfold is about the student or staff member rather than a book report on the celebration. Avoid comparing or contrasting.

• What does [celebration] mean to you?
• What traditions does your family have?
• What food do you eat on [celebration]? What ingredients make it special?
• How do you prepare for [celebration]?
• What music makes it special for you? Why?

Diverse Covergage Ideas

Symbols spreads

Ideally, you’d have photographs of the decor that surrounds your students during the season. If that isn’t possible, use some stock images and position pull quotes of students describing how they use them. 

Mini-Modules

Re-enactments of major events, such as Eid, that happen at a student’s place of worship can focus on the process, such as the challenges of memorizing lines or balancing rehearsals with school work. Lunar New Year festivals are another area to cover. Ask students about music, food, and decorations.

Winter or Spring “specials”

Plan ahead for one of the holiday seasons by interviewing students about their celebrations using the questions above.

Spring hosts Easter, Holi, Passover, Ramadan, and Vesak. Fall and winter are the seasons for Bodhi Day, Christmas, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Thanksgiving. (Please note, these are in alphabetical order, by season, not chronological as some days change because they are on a lunar calendar, not our American solar calendar.) 

Research First

There’s an iconic episode from The Office, “Diwali” that gives us a picture of what could go wrong (and oh-so-right). In typical Michael Scott fashion, he fills a meeting with inaccuracy, and his actions and lack of truth impact those around him. Moral of the story: be Dwight.

As you prepare to extend coverage to include diverse holidays and celebrations, do a brief study of the symbols and history of the event. These are great classroom opportunities to brainstorm questions and talking points. You can even give a few non-examples to help students filter.

We’ll leave you with this bonus fact: Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. It’s not even a national holiday in Mexico.

UPDATE: see 2023-2024 yearbook theme ideas. For more post-pandemic design trends, keep reading.

https://blog.treering.com/yearbook-themes-2023/

Using nostalgic designs, organic colors, and handmade elements, check out how you can harness the design and color trends for your 2021-2022 year(book) themes. The design world is unanimous: joy is back!

Treering has pre-released 15 new on-trend yearbook themes for 2021-2022! Log in to the app (for free) to see the full line of backgrounds, fonts, layouts, and artwork included in each theme to find some inspiration for your yearbook this year. Whether you're a Treering user or not, you can always look and use our ideas no matter who is your yearbook provider.

Trending Now: New Yearbook Theme Sneak Peek

Check back in late August for the full collection of new themes joining the Treering catalog. In the meantime, check out our top on-trend themes below.

Our Top Five Yearbook Themes and Trends

2022 Yearbook Theme Design Trend: Nostalgia, Color

Nostalgic design is synonymous with retro and vintage with the caveat it evokes emotion. Research shows pieces from the past produce positivity in the present! Pair nostalgic elements such as colors, fonts, and images with old school photos from past yearbooks for a complete blast from the past.

Get the look with Treering:

The 90s are back and with it memories of Lisa Frank binders, Zack Morris phones, and NSYNC songs. As you rock your acid wash jeans and baby doll Ts, check out the vibrant colors and iconic graphics in the Back to School yearbook theme that have as much pop as your fav boy band. Outdoorsy colors—think sunshine, spring water, and wildflowers—brighten up this design with drag-and-drop school supply artwork and backgrounds.

2022 Yearbook Theme Design Trend: Organic, Illustrative Design

In a year when we’re going back-to-basics in the classroom, you can bring them into the yearbook room. Celebrating living things is a tenet of organic design. Flora and fauna pop up in many of the new themes for 2021-2022 (hint, hint).

Hand-drawn images and line art continue to dominate the illustrative graphic design trends. Outlines, line art textures, and freeform shapes get their inspiration from the natural world.

Get the look with Treering:

Now and Zen is an airy collection of crisp lines, layers, geometric shapes set in this yearbook theme's neutral color palette. Like flannel, this design trend is meant to be layered.

2022 Yearbook Theme Design Trend: Nostalgia, Symbols

We’ve established nostalgia gives us all the feels. Neon’s century-long presence in the US conjures memories from riding in classic cars and drinking malts with grandparents to wearing Electric Youth perfume and sweating through skate nights.

Symbols can do the same. A thumbs up or a heart means you’re getting noticed. A border means READ ME! Arrows tell you to keep going because exciting things are forthcoming! And we all have our go-to emoji for wearing our feelings on our screens.

Get the look with Treering

We modernized the look of neon by adding emojis and icons you can use to divide academics, extracurricular, and personality pages. Because of this, Neon Lights is a complete theme package that will lighten the load for your yearbook team.

2022 Yearbook Theme Design Trend: Organic, Illustrative Design

After a year inside, the outdoors are calling! Natural textures, shapes, and colors are hot in the interior, industrial, and graphic design. They soothe. While it may not be as sappy as the nostalgic design trend—see what we did there—being in nature boosts creativity and reduces stress. And we need those two things for a budding yearbook program!

Get the look with Treering

The Beyond BeLEAF yearbook theme has illustrative, organic shapes and neutral colors that echo Treering’s commitment to sustainable business practices (shameless plug, I know...). Leafy borders, overlays, and frames hug your photos.

2022 Yearbook Theme Design Trend: Illustrative Design

The glory of illustrative design is its many manifestations: cartoon illustration picks up where the seriousness of the line art design trend leaves off. It’s whimsical and potentially nostalgic. It’s bold and bright. It’s fun and funky. If a playful yearbook theme aligns with your team’s vision, this is the trend to implement!

Get the look with Treering

By taking inspiration from popular games (that’s plural for a reason, people!), we created options for those who want their book to be timely, on-trend, and totally relatable to tweens. Start with the Crewmates theme, then Level Up.

If you'd like more help selecting a yearbook theme and design trend for your community this year, check out these five questions to ask your yearbook team.

Whether you're scrambling at the end of the year, or trying to decide at the beginning of the year, coming up with a yearbook theme is tough. How do you come up with the title of a book that hasn’t been written? You can play it safe and gather everyone’s feedback to eventually land on a yearbook theme that everyone hates the least, or you can choose for the group, and face criticism--but no help--for your idea. Let’s be real, neither option sounds fun. I interviewed different yearbook editors to try and gather some advice to help you get started. Here are 5 questions to ask yourself, and 5 thought-provoking theme ideas to inspire creativity. 

Why Should You Run a Yearbook Cover Contest?

Academic goals are of course the primary focus at school, but consider asking the students to layout SMART (specific, measurable, action, reasonable, time) goals at the beginning of the year. Come the end of the year they can go through a self evaluation that will lend itself nicely to the story of your yearbook. Goals could be long or short term. I remember having goals to read a certain number of books throughout the school year as well as trying to make it through a day without doodling on my hands/arms/legs.

What’s popular with your students this year? 

From movies to music, snacks to snapchat, pop-culture can be a great way to get some inspiration for your theme. The benefit to using a theme centered on pop culture is it adds an extra layer of nostalgia beyond your photo and story memories. The down-side, well as a child of the ‘80’s I can honestly say the photo of me with 5 foot tall bangs and fanny pack was embarrassing enough, not sure I need to be reminded of the countless hours lost to New Kids and Nintendo.

How are your student’s different from others? 

This might seem like a difficult question, but ask your students. They will typically know what makes their school “better” than the rival neighboring school. Growing up most of my classmates lived on a lake, because of this we were all about the water sports. We knew how to waterski off the dock, build pyramids, and wakeboard. We would have loved to see this represented in the theme of our yearbook, as it was unique to our school. You don’t need to limit yourself by the schools colors, the yearbook should tell the story of one moment in time and school colors are not unique to one year.

What issues are student’s passionate about? 

Pop culture changes year-over-year and with that children become passionate about different issues facing the world today. Similar to Michael Jackson and Free Willy raising awareness on preserving and protecting the ocean and its inhabitants, today children are talking about climate change and fact checking. Lucky for them they will never understand the frustrations of the card catalog now that Alexa can answer just about all their questions. Consider what issues students are talking about in class and how they are learning to make a positive impact in our future.

Who are your student’s role models? 

You might be surprised; kids today are #woke. Gone are the days where Micheal Jordan and Madonna served as the role models of youth. Kids today are looking up to people like Elon Musk and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. They are not just aware of what’s happening in the world, but they are choosing their role models wisely. Now that you’ve asked yourself a few questions, I thought I’d share some brand new themes that might get you on the road to something truly unique for your yearbook. Below are 5 fresh themes for you to consider for your tribe.

Fingerpaint

This theme captures the spirit of imagination, similar to Harold and his purple crayon, each student has the ability to draw whatever they might need, leaving their unique handprints behind as a reminder of what they have achieved.  

STEM

Early learning experiences in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are critical in preparing elementary school students for STEM learning in middle and high school, as well as for future careers in STEM-related fields. This theme talks to more than just the tech culture our children live in, but how schools are more focused now than ever in bringing STEM to the forefront of learning.

J[our]ney

With multiple different color options, this is a classic, bold, choice for a yearbook tribe wanting to add some graphic texture to their book.  It’s sentimental in begging the question, “What does the school care about for the year?” There are many ways to play with this theme. Consider some wordplay: 

• Y[our] goals
• Enc[our]agement
• N[our]ishment
• Study h[our]
• Y[our] story

Color Splash

It’s subtle yet elegant in the movement of the dots first flowing together then breaking off to find their own individual path, but not before first making a splash. This yearbook theme would be best for books that are text heavy, given the words will pop on the purple background, and there isn’t a lot of distracting artwork. 

Cosmic

The applications of this theme reach to infinity and beyond. From the single star that shines bright to the entire constellation of stars, our students are pushing the boundaries of learning to their outer limits. Each yearbook tells the story of just one year, whether your theme is how power corrupts, as in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, or love and loss as in Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook, (I genuinely hope those aren’t actually your themes) these ideas should help you get started. If you are looking for more inspiration, check out this handy theme generator, it might get you and your yearbook tribe a bit further on your journey. 

Some days, you’re so deep into the pages of your yearbook that you can’t figure out how to solve a problem staring you in the face. That’s when you need yearbook examples from other schools. School yearbook examples can be the single best tool in your arsenal when it comes to helping you solve design problems, find fresh story ideas and layout treatments, and build a library of best practices. It’s one of the reasons Pinterest has become a super-hot resource for yearbook ideas. The problem with Pinterest (and any other “lookbook” approach), though, is that you’re never going to get a full yearbook. And you’re certainly never going to get it in print. Both those factors mean you’re missing out on a lot; namely, context and the ability to easily revisit. Why not, then, build up a library of yearbook examples from a bunch of other schools? It’s a tried-and-true approach at some of the best school yearbook programs across the country, and it’s really easy to do on your own. You just need to know where to look and who to ask. Inside this post, we’ll walk you through the reasons you should be getting your hands on other schools’ yearbook examples and how you can go about doing it.

Why You Should Be Getting Your Hands on School Yearbook Examples

We already hinted at the big reasons for grabbing yearbook samples from other schools, but let’s take a second to make it super clear. You can’t beat having a whole book, in all its context, right in front of you. Think about it: You don’t release your yearbook one spread at a time on Pinterest for your students, do you? Of course not. You give them the whole thing, in all its printed glory, because that’s what the yearbook is all about. Each page and spread builds on the other to create a story of the entire school year. While learning how other schools shape their yearbook’s narrative is reason enough to collect yearbook examples, there are others, too. Let’s explore six of them:

• Find new design ideas. It’s a lot easier to have your yearbook team work through design problems and find inspiration when you have some great examples sitting in the same room as with them. And we’re not just talking about spread designs. Other schools’ yearbooks can serve as a way to work through design issues related to everything, including mods, folios, and section breaks—with the added benefit of seeing how those designs complemented theme development, were used as templates throughout the book, etc..
• Spot trends that fit your book. A new yearbook trend seems to pop up every year. Keeping track of them can be hard, and figuring out which ones are best for your yearbook can be even harder. It’s easier to spot them—and know which ones you like—when you have a library full yearbook samples from other schools.
• Identify story angles and themes. You might not know the students featured in other schools’ yearbooks, but that doesn’t matter much. They can still be a goldmine for identifying story angles, themes, and everything else that goes into shaping your yearbook’s narrative. Granted, you won’t use this stuff verbatim, but it’ll help you and your team look at your yearbook a little differently.
• Develop best practices. If you’re lucky enough to collect a bunch of yearbook samples that your team aspires to recreate, you’ve just found the ultimate resource for developing best practices. Gather those books, ask students to find commonalities among key aspects of the yearbook, and list them out. Use that as your guide for creating your own, best-of-the-best yearbook.
• Create new takes on old features. Some features, like table of contents and superlatives, are practically synonymous with the yearbook. But that doesn’t mean they need to be treated like status quo. In fact, a lot of schools have stopped doing that. Using your library of yearbooks as examples, you can find those refreshing approaches and draw inspiration to create your own.
• Practice critiques without hurting feelings. Teaching your yearbook team how to conduct critiques is important, but it’s not always easy when the only yearbook you have on hand is your own. It can be hard to be honest when you’re worried about insulting your friend’s work, and having yearbook samples can ease that tension and give everyone a safe place from which to practice critiques. Do that, and the actual critiques your team does will be that much easier and that much more effective.

If these reasons aren’t enough, well, here’s one more for you: Collecting yearbook examples can connect you with other yearbook advisers, volunteers, and students you would have never otherwise met. Those connections, which could become totally awesome friendships or just people to give you advice and listen to your yearbook problems, can be worth more than any of the other reasons listed above.

How to Get Yearbook Examples From Other Schools

So, here’s how you can actually get your hands on yearbook samples from other schools:

• PTA/PTSA Meetings: Every PTA and PTSA is full of involved, invested parents. Some even create the yearbook. Start asking around at county-level or regional-level meetings to build yearbook connections and swap books with other schools in your area. Even if the PTA or PTSA doesn’t run the yearbook, they’ll be able to connect you to the person at the school who does.
• Principal Groups: Most principals meet in groups, whether it’s part of a school district’s requirements or a professional development opportunity. Before they go to their next meetup, have your principal ask his or her existing connections to bring a copy of their schools’ yearbooks, so you can have them. It’s an easy way to collect a bunch all at once. (Just be sure to give your principal enough books that he or she can return the favor.)
• State Associations: While most yearbook advisers likely know JEA and NSPA, the national scale of those organizations might be intimidating to some. Instead, look to your local scholastic journalism associations at the state level. These organizations can be less intimidating, and are focused solely on your helping schools in your state. Check out this list to find your state organization.
• Social Media: You’d probably be surprised at how many friends and family can be in a position to help you. And how many other people out there would be willing to help. Put out a request on Facebook or Twitter, and you’re likely to get dozens of offers for help. And don’t forget about LinkedIn. Nearly 6,000 people list themselves there as being elementary, middle, and high school yearbook advisers and volunteers.

Getting great yearbook examples for your yearbook team isn’t hard. You just need to know where to look and who to ask. Start following our tips, and you’ll quickly build a library of books that’ll help you solve design problems, find inspiration, and create a better book overall.

Like retro trends themselves, what goes into a throwback yearbook theme gets updated (can we call it updated?) every few years. Because those trends are usually rooted in fashion or pop culture, they can take a good amount of creativity to link back to your throwback yearbook theme.  Right now, though, there’s one retro trend that fits the yearbook perfectly, without making any adjustments or working hard to make a creative connection: the laser photo background. Yup, you read that right. We’re talking about that 80s-style school photo backdrop emblazoned with neon lines and electric bursts, because they’re back, and they’re pretty meme-tastic. Don’t believe us? Do a quick Google search and you’ll be bombarded with some amazingly awkward glamour shots. While we don’t advocate purposely creating cringe-worthy student portraits for your yearbook, we do suggest you find a few ways to fit this retro trend into your throwback yearbook theme (funny yearbook superlatives, anyone?). Keep reading to learn where laser photo backgrounds came from, where to find them today, and how to create your own.

A Brief History on the Laser Photo Background

The laser photo background was all the rage in the 1980s, when many school portraits featured backdrops crisscrossed with bright, glowing lights. Back then it was totally stylish—and not at all ironic. The fad faded (or fizzled, if you will) and was banished to old yearbooks and family photo albums until 2007. That’s when a blogger posted this photo, titled “Me in ‘91”. It was, up to that point, the first laser photo background on the blog, which described itself as being dedicated to “the celebration of the perfect portrait.” (There is, in case you’re wondering, some sarcasm involved there.) Pretty much everybody sharing the image and basking in its cheesy glory essentially made that single portrait a meme before memes were even popular. The following year, a Tumblr blog called “We have Lasers!” debuted and—yup, you guessed it—it was dedicated entirely to school portraits with a laser photo background. As Lindsey Weber, the blog’s creator wrote in it’s “About” section: “You begged your mom to pay the extra $4. A tribute to the greatest school photo backdrop there ever was.” To say “We have Lasers!” took off would be an understatement: People submitted more than 500 portraits to be featured on the blog in less than two years, and the blog was featured on NPR, CNN, Time, and CBS News. Quickly, laser photo backgrounds went from meme to viral to mainstream. Popular sites, such as Awkward Family Photos and BuzzFeed, began featuring compilations of people posed in front of the iconic background. Even celebrities began recreating laser photo background images as spoofs (re: this picture of former 98 Degrees frontman, Nick Lachey). The Internet was, and in a lot of ways still is, in a laser-photo frenzy. So, how do you pull this trend into your throwback yearbook theme?

Where to Find—And How To Use—Laser Photo Backgrounds in Your Throwback Yearbook Theme

There are two places to find laser photo backgrounds:

• Buy an actual laser photo backdrop, in the form of a poster, online at Zazzle.com.
• Use this free laser photo background, created by Emily Coxe.

The poster at Zazzle.com comes in a bunch of different sizes. Deciding which size to buy is based pretty much entirely on deciding how you’re going to use it. So, before you pull the trigger and shell out a few bucks for a bit of nostalgia, think through your use cases and make sure you order the right one for your needs. The easiest way to do that? Do a test run of your photo shoot by placing your subjects against a plain wall and marking off the various poster sizes with painter’s tape. When you frame up your shot, pay attention to which size poster markings are inside the viewfinder, and order the next size up. If the idea of planning out your photo shoots and spending cash has you feeling a little bummed (and, hey, we get it; we make creating a yearbook free for schools), you can always work a little Photoshop magic. Really, if you have some super-creative students or parent volunteers on your yearbook committee who know their way around Photoshop’s masking tool, this is the way to go. In fact, even if you don’t have someone like that on your yearbook committee, but you have someone who is willing to give new stuff a try, this is the way to go. Because you can even use PowerPoint to do this. Here’s how to add a laser background (or any background, really) to a photo in Photoshop:

1. Choose your image. A picture with a plain background is easiest to work with, so—if you have control over this—have your subject stand in front of a plain wall or against the side of a building to capture some natural light.
2. Mask it. In Photoshop, use the pen tool to mask the person in the image. (Learn more about masking here.) You can also use more sophisticated Photoshop techniques, depending on how precise you want the image to appear. If you’re new to Photoshop, however, we recommend sticking to the basics.
3. Insert the background. Drag and drop, or copy and paste, the laser background of your choice. Size and position, save your image, and you’re good to go.

Here’s how to add a background to a photo in PowerPoint:

1. Add your image to a PowerPoint slide. Again, a picture with a plain background is easiest to work with.
2. Use the “Remove Background” feature. When you upload a photo in PowerPoint, your toolbar should automatically reset to display the “Format Picture” options that are available. You’ll want to be on that section of the toolbar, so make sure you’re there. Then, under the “Adjust” settings, choose “Remove Background.” PowerPoint guides you through the process from there, and it’s super simple.
3. Insert the background. Once you upload the background, you’ll want to size it appropriately and position it, like you did in Photoshop. Make sure you adjust your layers, so that the background is in the back. You can do that by finding the “Arrange” section in the “Format Picture” toolbar, and using the “Reorder” feature.
4. Save your image, but be sure to save your image as a .png, .jpg, or .gif file, and not a PowerPoint file.

That’s all there is to it. Not bad, right? Adding (or should we say “beaming”?) laser photo backgrounds into your throwback yearbook theme will totally put you in touch with today’s retro trends. It’ll also add a bit of irony and hipster style to your book, and we totally endorse that more than we endorse some of the other trends that are making comebacks.