Are you ready to dive into a world of expert insights, fresh ideas and creative inspiration? We’re thrilled to announce the release of the fall 2025 issue of Idea File magazine, which has been designed to support yearbook professionals like you in every aspect of your yearbook journey. Whether you’re a seasoned yearbook adviser, an editor-in-chief or designing your first spread, this issue is packed with the tools and personal advice to help you kickstart your yearbook.
Idea File is the largest yearbook magazine in the industry. Chalked full of timely articles written by yearbook advisers, sales reps and yearbook experts. With Idea File, you get to read practical advice and tried-and-true tips for making the best yearbook.
Some of our favorite standing columns return in this issue, including 5 Simple Ideas, which focuses on effective modular coverage, and Teaching Moment, offering insight into grading and structuring a yearbook class. You’ll also find the popular Caught Our Eye gallery, selected this year by Debbie Glenn, CJE. In addition to these staples, this issue features a variety of timely and engaging articles perfect for journalism classrooms’ back-to-school season.
A Closer Look at What’s Inside:
- Editor’s Corner: The Art of Font Pairings. Former Liberty North High School editor talks font pairings and how to choose the best fonts for telling your school’s story.
- Middle School Moment: Chrissy Baumaister from River Ridge Middle School writes The Envelope, Please: How a Simple Strategy Turned My Students into Storytellers about a hands-on activity she uses in her classroom every year to get her middle schoolers ready to write.
- Picture This: Walsworth yearbooks Sales Representative and former professional sports photographer Alyssa Moses, CJE, answers to the top four photography questions every yearbook staff asks in Why Are My Photos So…? If your photos are dark, have color discrepancies, movement blur or if you have trouble focussing your camera, this is a must-read article with technical advice to fix your camera setting and get you game ready.
- Be Like Mike: Lessons Learned from the Life of Mike Taylor. Leland Mallett, CJE, gives a heartfelt tribute to his former colleague and friend, Walsworth Yearbooks expert, Mike Taylor, CJE, who passed away in January.
- 5 Simple Ideas for Better Mods. Elevate your coverage and design with storytelling mods. Scott Collins, CJE, and UPrep Adviser has five ways for you to utilize mods in your yearbook.
- Online Design and InDesign Tutorial: Create consistent folios and guides throughout your book by using Master Pages with these step-by-step print and video tutorials.
- Photoshop Tutorial: Enhance your photos and quickly clean up exposure and lighting issues using Photoshop’s Camera RAW Auto edit function. Follow these step-by-step print and video tutorials to make the most of your photos.
- Think like a Detective: Developing Curiosity in Your Students to Uncover Hidden Stories. Mead High School yearbook adviser Makena Busch, CJE, reveals her strategy to keep her reporters’ heads on a swivel and find the untold stories by looking for people, places and things.
- Sourcing Content Ethically: Understanding How Copyright Applies to Your Yearbook’s Content Creation. Leander High School Adviser Bradley Wilson, MJE, Ph.D., explains what you need to know about copyright on images so you can ethically source photos to use in your yearbook when you can’t take the image yourself.
- The Power of Color: A Guide to Eye-Catching Design. Liz Luna, the former yearbook adviser at Athens Drive Magnet High School, dives into creating a color palette, the psychological effects of color, activities to test your color knowledge and how to use color theory to enhance your book’s theme.
- How to Go with the Flow. Learn the secrets of organic yearbook design. Award-winning former adviser and Walsworth Special Consultant Jim Jordan mixes up the traditional yearbook layout design with a step-by-step guide to create organic clusters and explores the evolution of this trend, including its mathematical origins.
- Teaching Movement: Making the Grade. Eastern Lebanon County High School adviser Jon Bickel shares how mini deadlines make grading a yearbook class easier and helps keep staffers on top of their work.
- Caught our Eye: We’re bringing some of the best yearbooks from across the country into your journalism classroom with Caught Our Eye. Van Horn High School yearbook adviser Debbie Glenn, CJE, shows off her favorite design and coverage trends from 2025 yearbooks.
Additional Resources:
Can’t get enough of Idea File? Find the resources referenced in the magazine for further learning. Utilize your 2026 Yearbook Planning Kit sent to your school or find the digital versions on Yearbook Help.
Find the font pairings mentioned in Editor’s Corner and so many more in the font guide found at the back of your Yearbook Blueprint workbook to create the perfect style guide for your theme.
Want to learn more after reading The Power of Color? Check out our Formula Colors booklet that provides an accurate printed representation of our Formula Colors. You can also explore effective color pairings with our curated Color Combos. Revisit the psychology of color with the Color-ology poster to understand how a color palette reflects your yearbook’s theme.
Share your new knowledge from 5 Simple Ideas for Better Mods to make a better mod with the yearbook staff by displaying the Master the Mod poster. This and a number of other flyer and poster resources can be used to decorate your classroom and serve as a point of reference all year long.
“This issue of Idea File is here to provide tools and inspiration to make your job easier and your book even stronger, all from the most trusted name in yearbooks,” Idea File senior editor Jenica Hallman said.
“As the only family-owned yearbook company, now in our fourth generation, Walsworth is honored to support the work you do. We believe in storytelling that lasts – and the people behind it.”
Why We Love Idea File:
As always, we’re here to support you and your team as you work to create yearbooks that tell the story of your students, community and school year. Telling the story of your year starts with you. Idea File magazine is here for advisers, editors, staffers and anyone who wants to learn more about the hottest trends and tips for creating thoughtful and successful yearbooks.
Watch for Idea File in your mailbox, talk to your local Walsworth rep or check out our digital edition. And if you have ideas for the future, we’d love to hear what you would like to see in the next issue. Email marketingyearbooks@walsworth.com to send us your suggestions.
