A divider page from our 2022 yearbook featuring a photo I edited to be black-and-white everywhere but the player's helmet, the clash eluding to our theme of the past meeting the present.
Please allow me to apologize for the image quality of some samples in this section. I've included content from some previous years' yearbooks, of which I no longer have access to the original PDFs. I am working with scans/pictures of physical books and some screenshots that I was able to take early in the year, but none reflect the resolution or quality of the real designs as they appear in the yearbooks.
Design
I've always enjoyed visual art, but it wasn't until I joined yearbook that I realized just how important it was. Being involved in a print publication has taught me so much about design and aesthetics, which has made me a better communicator. I've been incredibly lucky to learn all of this with the help of professional-grade software; I'll leave high school with extensive experience with using the Adobe platform and teaching it to others. With the skills I've built through journalism and yearbook, and put into practice through our print publications, I've learned how to combine solid writing with effective design to appeal to an audience.
the claw
Though I, as the person in journalism who was most comfortable using InDesign, had a major role in the design of The Claw last year, I was still following the decisions that our editor-in-chief made. His design was heavily influenced by the previous year's magazine, which hadn't changed its look much from the year before it. When I became editor-in-chief, my adviser strongly encouraged me to start fresh with the design of The Claw, so I spent my summer sketching ideas for our cover and our layout. I took inspiration from two contrasting, unlikely places: punk magazines from the '90s and copies of Scientific American I had saved from when I was a kid. Both design styles have had a big impact on my personal aesthetic when it comes to graphic design, and I've had a lot of fun combining them with this year's volume of The Claw.
our website
Coming out of winter break, I finally spoke to my adviser about doing something I'd wanted to do since becoming editor-in-chief: updating the look of our news website. I designed a new banner and added a logo to our site, updated our page to show our Instagram account and included a "recent stories" module on our story pages. I've attached a Wayback Machine link to this website from the end of last school year to show what the site looked like prior to my updating it.
See more of my digital design work in my "marketing" section, where I have some of the social media posts I've created for our publications program.
yearbook modules
My first leadership role in yearbook was that of design editor, which I held during my sophomore year. My biggest job with that project was designing modules for our staff to use. I worked with our editors-in-chief to choose design elements that they wanted to see incorporated throughout the book. A major element of their theme being triangles, I designed pieces that fit their aesthetic of choice while still trying to use space in an efficient way.
A module I created using the "contrast module" template I made as design editor.
The "contrast module" I made.
A quote template I made.
A module I created using the "contrast module" template I made as design editor.
A handful of the modules I designed my sophomore year, alongside a few examples of how our staff or I used them.
A module about the Olympics I created using a "by the numbers" template I made.
My "by the numbers" module template.
A module that some fellow editors and staff worked on about pop culture. The template we used was created after a staff member asked us to include a film-inspired module to fit with our theme, which incorporated vintage aesthetics.
A module about the Olympics I created using a "by the numbers" template I made.
The next year, as editor-in-chief, I had staff sketch out some module ideas during our summer yearbook "boot camp," and I created a few of them on InDesign to incorporate with that year's module selection. Our staff seemed to enjoy using modules that they had a big part in designing.
In keeping with the rest of my senior year, the modules I made for this year's book are pretty unusual. This year's theme incorporates a lot of organic shapes, which I tried to convey in my modules while still keeping a clean aesthetic.
This slideshow, for the sake of not sharing too much of an unpublished book, is the presentation I showed to staff about all of this year's templates. In it, you can see me get very excited about how our new yearbook company lets us drag-and-drop modules.
There are some examples of page layouts from this year in the "giving credit" section of my media law + ethics page.
If the Google Drive embed doesn't work, try to see the document here.
also...
For the past few months I have spent a truly ridiculous number of hours designing this portfolio website, entirely by myself, nearly from scratch. I've tried to make this website a reflection of my personality and style, as well as a place to showcase all of my work.
I hope whoever is reading this enjoys my work with this portfolio! Thank you for checking it out!