Find inspiration for your spread. Figure out a theme or idea for your spread. Find a story direction. Find people to talk to for your story. Get quotes for the story. Capture photos. Sort the photos. Select the ones best for your spread. Identify the people in the photos. Contact them. Get a good quote. Come up with a good kicker for the caption. Write the caption. Pick photos for cutouts. Go to Photoshop. Cut out the photos. Place them on your spread. Go through many different ideas and design layouts. Make sure all text is grammatically correct, and spelled correctly. Make sure everything is within borders, lined up with the grid and straight. Do all of this before your deadline.These are all of the things that a regular Creek Yearbook Staff member must complete before finalizing their spread.
The public has a common misconception that the yearbook only consists of photos and that the yearbook is just a bunch of pictures on a page, but it is so much more that that. The yearbook is history.
My grandparents only own one thing from their high school career, their yearbooks. Because of that I get to look back at the people that they used to be, before they had children or jobs, when they were still carefree, and ready to take on the world. We have discussions about how my grandpa won most handsome, and laugh about the ex-girlfriends he hasn’t seen in 60 years, but most of all we talk about “the good ole days” and for that I am so thankful they kept their yearbooks, their piece of history.
Even now I look back at my middle school yearbooks, and read the stories I never cared about, and realize how great they are. Occasionally I will find my name in there, and it never fails to bring a smile to my face. But It’s never my school photo that I look for, it the quotes, the candids, the stories about my friends and fellow classmates that mean the most. That why I want to challenge everyone this year not to look at just the photos (though they are amazing) but read the stories, or the captions, because the yearbook is so much more than photos, it’s history.