design editor | grand blanc high school | class of 2017
theme development
"BEST PART OF MY LIFE" Wall
One of my favorite memories in my first year of designing was being able to theme develop my two-page double paged feature I was assigned towards the end of the year. Continuing with a previous "supercoverage" page we had done with chalkboards, I wanted to take this interactive coverage method to the next level. I wanted to involve the student body in my work. To pull this of, all I needed was a huge roll of black paper, blue paint, chalk, string, glue, a single class period of yearbook and a whole lot of determination. All of these materials made it possible to illustrate the mass of students and their stories, bringing a human element to the halls of Grand Blanc High school.
"Reveal" Mini Mag
This two-page double page spread for "Reveal"'s Mini Mag was one of my favorite projects and pages I have ever worked on. I remember the original idea for this page was something much less authentic and genuine than that of covering students of various heritages. It took a lot for my sophomore self to speak out against that idea, but I am so glad that I did. I felt then, and I still feel now that revealing how raw and real these students' stories shaped the theme of the book and my future as a journalist. Its storytelling and carefully thought out photography was enough the move the entire staff to reach higher and make marks we didn't think we could make with the rest of the book.
"Callings" Progression
"Callings" was not something we had to look hard for. It was one of the original themes presented by our theme groups. The idea was there, but we had nothing to back up the basis of the what the word meant to us. So, after deciding to run with it, we spent entire blocks of classes expressing everything that we thought this theme meant to us. We then created a Trello board of everything we cam up with in those hours. From our mock covers, to how workflow would have to be for the staff, to quotes, to headline trials, to design inspiration, it was all found on this Trello board. We still use this board to this day, in case we ever forget the building blocks of this book. We have referred to the quotes for marketing inspiration and to the mock covers for a good laugh. This progression and growth of this them and book has been extremely valuable in my love and understanding of what this theme means to me and what it should mean to the student body.
"Callings" Cover
It may have taken precious hours out of my daily routine, and space in my stream of consciousness during my other classes, but the cover for "Callings" remains one of my most daunting feats. When we were theme developing, we found it hard to attach our idea of a "galaxy" and "universal" theme to the cover. With draft after draft, we got closer and closer. And we finally settled on a galaxy. This galaxy represented the endless possibilities and callings of each student at GBHS. The complexity of the galaxy and simplicity of "Callings" continues to serve as our verbal/visual factor to represent the storytelling and digging the staff is doing to capitalize on the diversity and unique nature of each student's determination to find out who they are.
"Callings" Dividers
In order to string our theme throughout the book, I made the executive decision to mimic the opening on each of our dividers. I wanted to take the storytelling, conversational copy and build it around our section titles to keep readers involved and engaged in our powerful theme. I then paired this copy with particularly exceptional photos that depicted the feelings of the section titles and copy.
"Callings" Mini Mag
I remember theme planning for our 2017 book in flashbacks. I distinctly remember the struggles, triumphs, confusion, good ideas, bad ideas and every last one of the ugly ideas we all proposed. One of the ideas we had written off, due to the lack of the mass amount of resources to pull it off, was incorporating handwriting into this book.I have to admit, I pushed it on my theme planning group to present. But I stood behind them in defending how important it is to connect with our student body through a personal touch. I figured this was the only possible way we could top dividing our book into four parts.
We ditched the idea.
But when planning the mini mag for "Callings", I realized that if you let an idea sit untouched for nearly a year, it will come back to haunt you in the very best way.
"IN PART" MAC Scholars
The MAC Scholars Group Spotlight is the epitome, to me, of what it means to find inspiration, make it your own, be an editor and oversee the content creation. I used the following magazine spreads in order to crate this spotlight page. I used the photo collaging and text treatment from the Brooks Brothers page and the coverage and text treatment from the Golden State Warriors feature in Gentlemen's Quarterly. In GQ, the page was structured to have Stephen Curry, the star of the Warriors, speak on each of his teammates. I transferred this idea to the content of my spotlight page, having one of the students to the same for his peers. The photos were taken carefully, as I made sure to accompany the groups on their shoots to make sure their light balance for the varying skin tones did each student justice. I was lucky to have experienced the growth and development of this page as a proud creator, as it has been shown at MIPA and JEA/NSPA conventions in 2016.