Category: Help for Schools

Elementary yearbook design can be creative and fun

It has been great being an elementary school yearbook adviser for my kids school, Park Trails elementary, for the past four years! With an elementary school Yearbook I try to make it as fun and interactive as possible. I try to keep the pages themed with current events, pop culture and popular movies. A great example was photographing and all the children that had minion shirts on for the “We are one and a minion” page. I also included a step-by-step diagram of how to draw a minion.

I have received a great response from a lot of parents that their children enjoy writing in there Yearbook. I always include the “all about me” page at the very front of the Yearbook. I include an image of a blank Polaroid picture which says “place photo here” to make this page even more personalized. The teacher name word scramble page was a fun layout a couple years ago and since our mascot is the panther, I’ve done a connect the dots to create a panther page for the kindergarten and preschool age children. In last year’s yearbook, I did a page spotlighting our music teacher. Not only did it include photos of the children with their instruments and music teacher, I also found a word maze through the word MUSIC on the internet. If you have some experience with Photoshop, you can do a “Spot the difference” page. Duplicate one photo and make slight changes to one of them. Some examples that I have done is removing a tree in the background or changing the color of a child’s shirt. I have done this every year and have discovered it’s not only fun for the kids but the parents also!

A great source that I use for inspiration and ideas is the children’s Highlights magazine. I really enjoy going to a bookstore, grabbing a cup of coffee and scrolling through children’s activity books & magazines. Quite often there will only be one or two pages that give me inspiration so I just snap a photo of it.

If you are an elementary school yearbook adviser- Have fun, be creative, but most of all enjoy knowing you are creating a keepsake that will be cherished for many years to come!!!

Kelly Kiernan
Park Trails Elementary’s proud yearbook adviser

August’s Trend of the Month

Chalkboard artwork has been a major graphic design trend the last two years. It’s easily spotted in advertisements, magazines and yearbooks. It can be used to create a vintage look for your yearbook or to make it more playful and fun.

Like this magazine example, the chalkboard design can be used as a background. The look is completed through the use of the handwriting or chalk-like fonts. Even though chalkboard might make you think of black and white, in this example and others, color can be used really effectively to create this look, which modernizes it.
#1 – Austin Woman Magazine – March 2012 Cover – photographed by William Russell – cover handwriting by Anilyn Fabello and Danielle Pruitt of ChalkInk – Art Director Victoria Miller

You can use the chalkboard look as a graphic element. In this example, it creates more of a faded grunge look.
#2 – Graphic Design and Typography – Swiss Legacy – Graphic Design in France 2009/2010

Use this trend to personalize mug shots or student ads.
Brekke Felt – Felt Photography – www.feltphotography.com

Use free frames, vector art, clip art and fonts to create the look you want for your yearbook.
Kimberly Geswein – KG Flavor and Frames

Visit our Pinterest Trend of the Month Board for more examples, resources and tutorials on creating this look for your yearbook.

Melissa Falkowski
Yearbook Sales Representative

Being an Editor in chief can be very difficult but rewarding

Being an Editor in chief
can be very difficult
but rewarding

By Zach Silberberg

Being an Editor in chief can be very difficult but rewarding. The position requires you take on many roles. You’re more than just a figurehead; you’re a writer, a designer, a decision maker, but most importantly, you are a role model.

It’s not easy to assume all these roles at once, but remember that you have a staff to help write stories, design layouts, and even participate in some decision-making. However, you are the one that your staff will look up to. As Editor-in-Chief you are primarily a mentor and often a parental figure.

When I first started yearbook my junior year at Deerfield Beach High School, I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea that stories were supposed to be written in past tense, how to design a page, or really anything regarding how to produce a publication. But I had an amazing editor, Kaitlyn Nicholson, who took me under her wing and taught me everything I needed to know. She was my mentor, my role model, and in all reality, my yearbook mother. By the end of the year Kaitlyn had taught me everything she knew about creating a great yearbook. She did more than impart her yearbook wisdom because she taught me so much about life in general.

I truly mean it when I say my Editor-in-Chief changed my life. I only hope that I was able to make the same difference to at least one of the members of my own staff. Yes, as the editor you have many responsibilities, but never forget your most important one. Make an effort to get to know your staff. Who knows, maybe you’ll have as much as an impact on their lives as Kaitlyn has had on mine.

Zach Silberberg

A Deerfield Beach High 2014 graduate, he is starting University of Miami in fall 2015 for a full scholarship for a nursing degree.