Each section should have its own look. This look is created by designing elements that will be repeated on every spread in the section. This repetition makes the spreads in the section hold together. They become unified.
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Using the text tools in Adobe InDesign, you can meld your words and images together with transparent text.
The child of a military family, D.J. Stout found it difficult to connect with people he would soon be moving away from. However, by age 11, he took his love of drawing and his fascination with publications and parleyed them into “The Weekly Laf,” a cartoon newspaper he drew on carbon paper and distributed around the neighborhood.
With that kind of creative aspiration, it is no surprise that Stout is now an award-winning designer and partner with international design consultancy Pentagram in Austin, Texas.
You can divide circles and insert images for an interesting way to add more photos to a spread.
1. Draw a perfect circle. Hold down the Shift key while drawing to make it proportional, or use the width and height (W and H fields) in the Control Bar to make it perfectly round. Consider using whole numbers for the width and height so it will be easier to do the math later.
The staff at Dunwoody High School in Dunwoody, Ga., used several photo illustrations in their 2006 yearbook, as seen on page 19 in the Caught Our Eye feature. You can follow these steps to turn a photograph into an illustration:
Like all design elements, fonts should be used with purpose. And – let’s face it – the purpose of a yearbook is to tell the stories of the year. So the fonts chosen to “speak” shouldn’t draw attention to themselves but rather to the content on the page.
This effect can be done with many types of elements. The staff of the 2006 Epic of Lee’s Summit West High School in Lee’s Summit, Mo., used it to help illustrate their theme, “Not So Obvious.” See more about this yearbook in the Caught Our Eye feature in this issue.
Each year, advisers and staffs work to develop a theme to unify their yearbook and make it a reflection of the school and students during that particular year. This is one of the most daunting tasks of the entire production process. Themes do not magically appear. It takes thought and hard work. And theme development itself has a process.
Outside, it was one of those great gifts to humanity – a brisk, colorful, blue-skied fall day in Montana. But inside our stuffy, fluorescent-lit classroom, it felt positively spring-like.
You are the lucky recipient of a preliminary layout sheet (from this point on we’ll call them what they really are – dummies – the layout sheet, not that kid that sits behind you in math class). You may be asking yourself at this point – “What do I do with this ‘dummy’?” You are in luck. Not only does the exciting and fast-paced opportunity of designing await, but in your hands you now hold a key to solid beginning design – a guide (not that I can be here every step of the way, but at least some rules to remember as you embark on your journey).
