How It’s Made-The Yearbook

How+Its+Made-The+Yearbook

Pre-Ordering a yearbook is usually an exciting event, but as you wait for it to arrive you’re not thinking about the process of how it was made. 

“We look at a book of the best yearbooks and get ideas from it,” Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Hernandez said.

The students attend a yearbook camp at Texas A&M for four days.

“We usually predict what is going to happen at the beginning of the year because the goal is to get the yearbook theme decided on before we start school but that doesn’t always happen,” Managing Editor Aeyshana Parker said.

This year’s theme is Kaleidoscope.

“It took us a while to land on this year’s theme,” Parker said. “We looked at a list of many words related to how this year was going to go and decided on this one.”

Yearbook is a class that is very structured.

“So we get assignments every two weeks so usually half of us are going out and getting stories and interviews and the other half of us are filling the pages,” Hernandez said. “Me and Aeyshana are overseeing all of the pages because we have been in yearbook for the longest time.”

The class is run like a democracy, everyone has a voice and are able to communicate their ideas.

“When we have opposing ideas we try to have a class discussion about it, making sure that everyone knows that they can express their opinion at any point,” Parker said. “We also go through trial runs before we settle on the thing that most people agree with.” 

Although they have class time to work, there are many aspects of the yearbook that can only be done outside of the classroom setting.

“For stories it’s a lot of work outside of the classroom,” Photo Editor Catriona Clarke said. “I’ll have the interviews done during the day, then at home I’ll compile them together, create the story, and just submit it in at school. I also go to a game or an event that’s happening for photo assignments and I usually stay for at least an hour.”

There are many qualities that can help students create the yearbook.

“Being involved in school activities really helps with the yearbook because if you know a lot of people it’s gonna be a lot easier to get quotes,” Hernandez said.

Photography is also a crucial part of the yearbook.

“Taking a good photo and it being the focus of a page makes you feel very accomplished after going out every week to take these photos,” Clarke said.

The history of this year is memorialized in the yearbook.

“It may seem like it’s not a big deal but in five, ten, twenty years you want to be able to see what you and your friends were up to,” “It’s a good way to see what school life was really like.”

The yearbook is made by students, for students.