Elementary Student Art Cover Winners from the 2026 Treering Yearbook Design Contest

Treering’s annual design contest celebrates the creativity, storytelling, and talent that make yearbooks meaningful. This year, we combined the contests for cover, custom pages, and spreads, creating our biggest challenge yet.

Your response was incredible.

Three groups of judges evaluated over 1,000 entries from parents and school leaders for

• Design quality
• Storytelling
• Visual impact
• Relevance to content

In the elementary student art category, the top entries were not over-designed. Quickly a trend in the top designs emerged: collaborative pieces celebrated community. These handcrafted images felt human and truly owned by the students they reflect. 

Grand prize winner: All Saints Catholic School, Lewiston, ID‍

Zooming in on this cover, the judges drew a collective breath. Brush strokes, raw paper edges, newsprint, and layer upon layer emerged from the collective art piece that formed All Saints Catholic School’s cover.

The base

‍Third and fourth graders created the colorful canvas for the foundation.

Students also drew an outline of the school, which they cleaned up and painted using digital tools.

The mascot

‍Others studied different pictures of a husky and created an outline using what they deemed ideal qualities (tail curvature, facial expression, etc.). 

“Pattern pieces were created out of the different areas of color, then the students cut out an excessive amount of individual pieces of scrapbooking paper to create the base colors on the dog,” adviser Miranda Green, who is also the school’s art teacher, said.

Green and the students compiled the pieces (one paint, one digital, one torn paper) using Photoshop, uploaded the artwork to Treering, and added the copy. 

The result is a blended mixed media piece of art deeply rooted in school identity. 

Runner up: Burgin Elementary School, Arlington, TX

Judges called out “extreme inclusion,” “it celebrates how students see themselves,” and “coverage goals” when they saw the 350 hand-drawn self-portraits on the cover of Burgin Elementary’s cover. You can see PK artists, 6th graders, and every student in between. The grid system kept it from being overwhelming and the variation of color and style kept us looking.

“I wanted it to be all about the kids,” yearbook coordinator Cole Perrine said.

Perrine has every yearbook from his school days. He couldn’t wait to start the tradition with his daughter for her first year of school. Then he discovered that Burgin’s PTA hadn’t had a yearbook for a decade. And they didn’t have a PTA. So he helped initiate both.

As a professional in film and television, he emphasized the craft over using AI to create the yearbook. His yearbook club students created their own layouts. They took candid photos and worked with staff to crowdsource submissions. 

Perrine also worked with the art teacher to develop the school-wide portrait project. Using their yearbook portraits as inspiration, students developed their own, which Perrine scanned in batches of 10, downloaded them to his computer, and repeated. His wife created the layout for both cover panels.

The students celebrated with the first-ever yearbook signing party on campus.

“Yearbook was everything when I was in school,” Perrine said. 

Runner up: Maplebrook Elementary, Naperville, IL

Looking at the cover, it feels like a yearbook about making things. Yearbook coordinator Emily Tonon adapted the Treering “Collage” theme kit to reflect students’ creativity by featuring classroom artifacts, sketches, artwork, and the art instructor who inspired it all.

It feels like a vision board. Layers, mixed media graphics, and multiple focal points invite visual exploration. Maplebrook Elementary’s cover told us they are a school that values creativity, experimentation, and student expression.

Inspired by art installations on campus, Tonon brought them in the book. Beyond the cover, she created student art features throughout the yearbook as another way to cover students and the work they do.

Runner up: Olita Elementary, La Habra, CA

Judges fell in love with the details: shadows from the cacti, spines in all directions, use of negative space, strong readability, and “Olita” spelled out with the lasso. The student creator hand drew the art on his iPad.

PTA president Christie Fisher continued the 25-year tradition of having 6th graders create the cover art. The submissions are blind judged and they must include Ollie the owl and the school year theme, “Saddle up for excellence.”

This cover conveys the school's personality and demonstrates student ownership.

As you can see, the judges consistently rewarded authentic representation over decoration and storytelling over trends. We are proud to showcase the top entries to represent the creativity, passion, and student-centered connections that preserve school memories beyond a social feed.

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