The key to developing a theme is making sure your motif addresses it in every section of your yearbook—from the front cover to the back cover. Consider creating titles that play off words of the theme, or work on conceptual themes that play off an idea or image. Maintain the same graphical elements, colors and fonts for your motif to keep the theme uniform and consistent.
Cover: Introduces the theme
Endsheets: Promotes unifying idea through color and/or
headlines, copy, photos, art, captions or graphics
Title Page: Reflects theme idea through content and design
Fonts
Fonts are a powerful design element that can add or detract from the overall look of your yearbook. They can express an emotion or evoke a feeling, similar to the way color can. Pictavo offers a huge variety of more than 200+ fonts, to choose from. To keep a consistent look throughout your book, select a “family” of 3-5 fonts to use. You can then vary the size, weight (bold/light line), leading, kerning, etc. of the font to create interest without detracting from your design.
Helpful Tip:
Most publishers provide schools fonts due to ownership legalities and to prevent mistakes in production. Pictavo offers more than 200+ of the latest fonts, with new fonts added every year to ensure a variety to suit your school.
Types of fonts
Serif: Semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. These small lines that decorate the main strokes of a letter are widely used in
traditional printed material such as books and newspapers. Studies have shown that serif fonts are often easier to read than sans-serif fonts at smaller font sizes.
Sans Serif: Doesn’t contain any serifs at the ends of strokes. The term comes from
the French word sans, meaning “without”. Sans serif fonts have become the de facto standard for body text on-screen. Although they typically appear less formal than serif fonts, they can be used for striking effect in headlines, chapter names, and advertisements. In addition, sans serif fonts are typically used when large print is called for, where serifs become a distraction.
Handwritten: Based on the fluid strokes of natural handwriting. Handwritten
fonts are a great way to add a personal touch to a design or layout.
Decorative: More artistic and eye-catching. Decorative fonts can be a useful design
tool when trying to add a certain ‘look’ or ‘feel’ to a design project or layout. These fonts should be used in moderation and only in headers or subheads for decorative or ornamental purposes, not as body text. They tend to have a very distinct look and feel and using them for body copy will make text difficult to read or make the layout look cluttered and messy.
A theme is the central idea, or unifying “attitude” of the year captured by the yearbook itself. It should tell a story about what makes this school year different and unique from other years—something that everyone can relate to and identify with.
A motif is the visual cues or recurring symbols that reinforce the theme and remind readers about the central idea. Motifs create mood and sentiment by using images, shapes, colors, patterns, etc. repeatedly throughout the yearbook.
Your theme should be woven throughout your yearbook in every section using your motif—the sports section, student life section, clubs and organizations section, portrait section, academic section, advertisement section, endsheets, etc.
Choosing Your Theme
Developing a theme for your yearbook should be fun and creative. Your theme should reflect the attitude of your school that year. Is your school going through a growth phase? Celebrating an anniversary? Initiating new changes? Welcoming new administration? Your yearbook is the perfect medium to tell this story so it is remembered by all. It should document the events and celebrate the milestones of the year in a story format that ties into a main idea.
Planning Tip: Many schools choose mascot- or spirit-related themes that tie in with school colors or anniversaries. Whatever you decide, make sure you keep it consistent throughout the book and add art and text that support it.
Brainstorming Tips
Listed below are a few theme ideas to brainstorm around. Take a moment to review some of these ideas when developing your school’s theme. Make sure to use it throughout your yearbook – on the cover, endsheets, title pages, division pages, and sections of the yearbook. There is no “wrong” theme; however a theme may be underdeveloped and difficult to understand. To avoid this, make sure to brainstorm ideas with everyone on your yearbook staff or ask faculty to weigh-in.
A Cut Above
A Day in the Life
A Flash from the Past
A New Awakening
A New Point of View
A Season of Change
A Step Above the Rest
A Touch of Class
Any Way You Slice It
Attention to Detail
Between the Lines
Breaking Thru
Built to Last
Capture the Magic
Catch the Moments
Caught in the Act
Check Us Out
Check It Out
Color me ___________
Come Learn With Us
Days of Our Lives
Deep in the Heart of…
Destined to Be…
Distinct Impressions
Every Step of the Way
Eye On…
Face The Facts
Find Your Place
First Class
For Members Only
Forever Young
From This Moment On
From Start to Finish
Get the Picture
Going In Style
Going Places
Gotta Have It
Great Moments in…
Had to Be There
In Quest Of__________
In the Making
Inside And Out
Into Something New
It All Adds Up
It All Begins With You
It Goes Without Saying
It’s A Small World
It’s About Time
It’s All in Your Mind
It’s Anyone’s Guess
It’s Our Time
It’s Your Choice
Just Passing Through
Just for the Fun Of It
Just Had to Be There
Laying It on the Line
Let’s Face It
Lights, Camera, Action
Listen Up
Living the Dream
Look at The Best
Make Your Mark
Making the Pieces Fit
Moving On Out
Never Had It So Good
Never Say Never
New Beginnings
Nobody Does It Better
On Our Own
On the Edge
One and Only
One Size Fits All
Once in a Lifetime
One Last Look
Only The Finest
Our Time to Shine
Pardon Our Dust
Picture This
Piece By Piece
Pieces of the Puzzle
Reach for the Stars
Remember This
Right On Target
Road to Success
Say It With Style
Seeing is Believing
Seize the Day
Signs of the Times
Simply the Best
Still the One
Sum It Up
Take Another Look
Take a Closer Look
Take It from the Top
The Best of Times
The Show Must Go On
The Spirit Of…
The Times of Our Lives
The Year to Remember
This Is Our Time
Too Hot to Handle
Turning the Page
Unbelievable
Under Construction
Unforgettable
Unleashed
We’ve Got It All
What’s Next?
Year of the __________
You Had to Be There
Is your yearbook staff struggling with inspiration for your new year’s theme? No two yearbooks should ever be alike, but at YearbookLife we know sometimes that coming up with new ideas can be difficult. This of course does not mean that you cannot use a past yearbook to pull ideas from! It is a great start if you and your yearbook staff are struggling for ideas.
The theme of your yearbook can reflect something that has happened in your school or in the media in the past year. Themes can also be pulled from fun quotes as well. Once you have gotten your yearbook theme, it is time to start putting it to work throughout your entire school yearbook. A fun and creative idea is to incorporate your yearbook’s theme with portrait pages, club sports pages, and take your theme beyond just the yearbook cover. Adding graphics and utilizing your page layout can be a great way to make your yearbook different for every year. Of course, not every page has to be loaded with graphics or quotes, but when you find it fitting, do not be afraid to create! Click here to View School Yearbook Samples 0r View Gallery of Yearbook Cover Ideas.
Making sure that your theme is carried throughout your entire yearbook is a fun way to make your yearbook different every single time. This great way to keep things interesting may mean putting a little bit more work into your yearbook, but with great free software like Pictavo from YearbookLife, these steps will be simple! For more support concerning your school yearbook, contact YearbookLife for any questions or concerns, also don’t forget to check out our YearbookLife YouTube channel and watch our videos for helpful yearbook tips!
Once you have taken the pictures to fill up your yearbook, and you have the latest software to develop your yearbook, it is time to start thinking of yearbook themes. Your yearbook theme is important when creating your yearbook. It organizes your yearbook to help create a smooth flow from section to section.
When you are having trouble finding inspiration for your theme, go to some artwork for help. Artwork is a great place to start when trying to figure out a theme. Once you have picked your theme, say for example “thinking outside of the box” you can start to figure out what your cover and inside pages will look like. Remember, that you want to keep with your theme. While you may want to incorporate a lot of great ideas, that will only make your yearbook messy. With the example theme you can incorporate some wacky designs on the inside pages and also possibly include some fun facts about your students. Since the yearbook is for the student’s enjoyment, why not feature some outside of the box facts about the students! This will make your yearbook much more personal. For example, maybe a student in the freshman class works with on a camel farm. That is certainly something that is outside of the box. You can be as creative as you would like to be with your theme.
Your theme will help put your yearbook together with style. The options for yearbook themes are endless. If you want to break away from the theme you have chosen for your sports and club pages, that is okay too. You can to add a sports specific background to spice up your sports team pages but just remember to keep the sections consistent.
Contact YearbookLife and get more information on how to make your school yearbook best it can be. Don’t forget to check out the yearbook design software offered at YearbookLife.com.
