PROFESSINAL YEARBOOKER

“I looked at my rep my senior year of high school, and asked, ‘How do I get your job?’ She said, ‘You’ve got to work your butt off, get a degree, keep in touch, don’t screw up, then call us after college and see where we are.’ So, I did all that. I also always worked at their yearbook camp teaching design. That kept me in their realm. Then, my senior year of college, my reps called me up two weeks before I was about to graduate and said, ‘We want to hire you to be our freelance cover artist.’ That year, the cover workshop was during finals week. So, I talked to all my professors and they said, ‘This is the job opportunity of a lifetime for you.’

“I got a taste of magazines [in college] and thought, I may want to go that direction versus my original plan. I got hired at Fresno Magazine. After a couple months, they said, ‘We know from your portfolio you have designed from scratch, can you help us do a brand refresh?’ That experience was invaluable to me. I learned more in that year than I could have learned anywhere, just working at that kind of level of publishing, literally creating

156 pages in two weeks.

“I always tell my yearbook staffs: If I didn’t make my deadlines there, I would’ve just gotten fired. Learning the deadline aspect of yearbook is something so invaluable for these kids because if they miss a test, a lot of teachers will just let them make it up. If you miss a deadline, your ship date, you have more real-world consequences.

“Making it is a lot about who you know. Maintain relationships. Don’t burn bridges.”