It’s been a long time since yearbooks were just portrait pages, posed team photos, and senior superlatives. But a funny thing happened on a way to all the new yearbook design ideas we’ve started using: It got a bit overwhelming.
Pinterest, the ultimate goldmine for any yearbook teacher looking for ways to up their game, now offers more design ideas than you could possibly handle. And on top of that? There’s zero in the way of rhyme or reason to how they’re presented. That can put you in a bit of a predicament.
It’s pretty much impossible to find inspiration for a specific yearbook section or page type.
Or, should we say, it was pretty much impossible…
Inside this post are dozens of great yearbook design ideas from some of our favorite schools. They’re sorted and organized by yearbook section and page type, so you can easily find what you’re looking for. We love these yearbook design ideas, because they’re a great mix of being easy to implement and pure inspiration.
Whether you’re shining the spotlight on an engaging science lab, elevating your section dividers, or integrating modifiers like polls or selfies, we’ve got you covered. Just click on the images below to start checking out the examples.
(Oh, and a quick thank you to all of the schools featured: You rock! Thanks for doing excellent work and letting us show it off.)
Yearbook Design Ideas For Your Book
Academics
Yearbooks often celebrate a school’s teams and clubs, but little emphasis is placed on academics. Why not give your teachers and their handiwork some love, too? Highlighting academic spaces and endeavors can be a really cool way to add something different to your yearbook this year.
Sports
Athletic sections have been a foregone conclusion in almost every yearbook since the dang things were invented. Unfortunately, little has changed since that point. Some might call this “classic;” we’d call it a missed opportunity. By incorporating action shots of varying sizes, splashes of color, and other design elements, you can breathe life into your coverage of your school’s teams.
Class & Portrait Pages
While portrait pages will always be packed with, well, portraits, the space around students’ faces offers near-limitless opportunity to include interesting design elements. Whether you’re using poll results to create compelling visualizations or just incorporating colors and shapes for a little extra pop, good design can bolster your portrait pages.
Clubs
If you’ve got room to give each of your school’s clubs their own spread in the yearbook, try to juxtapose candids and posed photographs with compelling snippets of copy. Don’t be afraid to incorporate fonts and design elements with thematic tie-ins to the clubs themselves.
Student Life
Student life sections are home to the most-talked-about events of the year: homecoming, prom, pep rallies. But they can also be home to the every-day events that might otherwise be forgotten in yearbook coverage: first-day-of-school rituals, exchange student program.
Covers
Great yearbook covers reflect your yearbook’s theme, capture the spirit of a school’s community, and embrace at least one of your school’s longstanding traditions. None of these is possible without great design. Luckily, we’ve pulled together some incredible examples to help your next yearbook cover be the best your school’s ever seen.
Section Dividers
Section dividers might be the most overlooked design opportunity in yearbooks, but they can serve as the perfect introduction to multi-page spreads—if you put a little thought into them.
Table of Contents
A yearbook’s table of contents is more than just a helpful guide to a reader. It’s also an opportunity to set the visual tone for a book and to set the foundation for your theme.
Student-Focused
Yearbooks are inherently student-focused, but certain page types and coverage goals lend themselves to giving your students a “close up.” These pages can offer a deeper look at a specific topic, whether its academics or sports (or anything else for that matter).
