Advance Your Yearbook Theme

Find your story and tell it — with both your visual and verbal.

Rockstar yearbook advisers from perennial award-winning programs, Carrie Faust and Mike Simons take some time to talk pandemic probs before diving into what makes a theme tick. Covid shaped 2020-21, and yearbook themes reflected that fact.

Parts of a solid theme

Don’t forget to use various techniques to drive home your theme visually and verbally.

Voice
Perspective
Look
Tone
Feel
Coverage
Vibe
Features

The order of theme

Seriously, start with the voice then move to the vision.

Story: What are you going to say?
Words: How will you say it?
Pretty: How will you show it?

After touching on finding a theme, the duo shows off a college look book for inspiration. They can’t stress enough how good these pieces are because they target the same readers you do with your yearbook.

Later, they break down a few different examples, including Del Norte High School’s 2021 book because of how well the staff handled their theme.

See what makes a concept strong and take a deep dive into more themes to understand what makes them such powerful unifiers. Watch the video. (Don’t miss out: Link expires on Oct. 15.)