When it comes time to make sure everyone is in the yearbook, we know how tempting it can be to turn your student life pages into collages and call it a day. It’s fast, it’s easy, it’s effective.
But if you’re looking to do a little more than just make sure everyone’s photo is in the yearbook more than once, those student life pages can be a great place to try something different. Last year, we put together 50 unique spread ideas so you could do just that. Each of them are intended to be mini stories that give the reader a look at one particular aspect of your school.
50 is a lot, though, so we thought we’d bring back a few (#throwbackthursday, if you will) that were our favorites. Here goes…
Three Unique Spread Ideas
But first let me take a selfie.
Let’s face it: selfies are totally shameless and totally awesome. Send students on a selfie-taking mission in school and have your team pull them together in a well-designed spread, and you’ve got a totally unique (and fully crowdsourced) page for your yearbook.
What’s in your backpack?
Ever see those “#whatsinmybag” Instagram shots? Do your own. Run a photo shoot where students bring their backpacks and tell you why they have what they have. Your spread won’t just be photos, it’ll be stories about what students use to get them through the day.
Real life, true confessions.
Art Linkletter got kids to say the darndest things, and you can do the same. All you have to do is grant anonymity. Ask them for confessions and run them on a spread. I remember my friends and I used to all tell our parents we were going to the dance after the Friday night football game, when in fact that was just an excuse to stay out a little later and head over to our favorite pizza spot and hang out. Be sure to sort your confessions for upbeat and free-spirited stuff. Not mean or vulgar things.
These are just ideas, of course. Create your own version on any of these, and have fun coming up with unique spread ideas of your own. Finding out a way to show off what is so unique about your school and your students are what yearbooks are all about. Spread your imagination, and everyone will reap the benefits.
