Color is the first thing people notice about a yearbook. Even from
a distance, people can recognize the cover by its colors. Some schools
traditionally use variations of their school colors on the cover, but the
trend is to use currently popular colors. In choosing colors, a wise staff
considers its audience, theme and budget. The audience is the people in
the school, but within that audience are males and females, seniors and
sophomores, country music lovers and classical music lovers, athletes
and actors. Just as the theme encompasses the individual members of
the audience, the colors must appeal to them, too.
Color makes a statement. School colors state that this is the book
produced by the school represented by these colors. Every year there
are “power” colors—colors that are trendy in clothes and decorating
schemes. Using power colors in your yearbook says, “We know what’s
cool this year. ”
Colors represent emotions, too. Red can mean energy and love, or it
can symbolize anger and hate. Green symbolizes life; yellow symbolizes
happiness. Upbeat themes are best reinforced by warm colors like red,
yellow and orange. Laid-back themes are better reinforced by cool col-
ors—shades of blue, green and purple.Ladder
The ladder is a page-by-page plan that shows the content of each
page of the yearbook. As soon as the staff members know how many
pages the book will contain, they can begin planning the ladder.
The ladder is designed to show which pages will be across from
each other (see Figure 18.1). Books should be planned and designed in
double-page spreads even if the subject matter on each page is differ-
ent. Readers will see the pages as one unit when they open the book.
Exceptions are the first page and the last page, which will be single
pages.(^408) MIXED MEDIA
Opening/Principal 2
Opening 4
Events Division 6
New Student Days 8
homecoming 10
Mayfest 12
Luau 14
GDD 16
Graduation 18
Renaissance 20
Fall ALS 22
Spring ALS 24
SA Activities 26
Fine Arts Division 28
Art 30
Theater/Fall 32
1 Table of Contents/Title Page
3 Opening From Principal
5 Opening
7 Events Division
9 Parents Night
11 Homecoming
13 Spring Fling
15 Festival
17 GDD
19 Graduation
21 Renaissance
23 Fall ALS
25 Spring ALS
27 Blast Off
29 Fine Arts Division
31 Art
FIGURE 18.1
SAMPLE LADDER
ladder
a page-by-page plan of a
yearbook that shows the
proposed content of each page