Blank Page Syndrome. We’ve all suffered from it. I know I’m suffering from it now.
Sometimes you sit down to write, but nothing comes to mind. After an hour or two of staring at the screen, you find it’s as blank and white as a sugar-dipped polar bear wearing a ghost costume in an arctic snowstorm.
Working on a yearbook project is no different. The trick is to get started with that first page, and the rest will follow.
Here’s some ideas to fill the first page of your yearbook.
Introduction page
First, let’s try keeping it simple. You could add an introduction page that includes your school logo and name, leavers’ year, and even the school motto.
What makes your school unique? Is there a building or feature on campus that you could take a photo of and add to the cover sheet?
You can also write a short description of the school history and ethos. Your teachers might be able to help you with this.
If you’ve chosen a more traditional faux-leather cover design, this is the ideal opportunity to customise the start of your yearbook and introduce it in a bright, engaging way. Consider enlisting an artsy type to draw some artwork or designs to spruce up the page.
Headteacher/Head of Year Message
Many schools opt to include a heartfelt message from the headteacher or the head of year. This is a meaningful way to celebrate your year group’s outstanding achievements and impact on the school. You might not realise it, but your headteacher has had quite a significant impact on your life, and we are sure that they would love the opportunity to wish you all well.
It also takes off some of the pressure from you and your yearbook committee.
If you choose to do this, you can pass on this guide to help them get started. Remember, we all suffer from Blank Page Syndrome, and it’s no different for your principal!
Photo Montage
Using Yearbook Hub, our amazing online yearbook builder, you can easily lay out a few choice photos, or scatter a heaped pile of images across the page.
We suggest picking out all of the group shots you have of the year group, as they tell the journey you all took together over the past few years. Even if you only have two photos – one from the start of school, and one from the end – they will tell a story.
You can interweave these with photos of the school grounds and buildings.
Student Name Word Cloud
Thanks to the magic of the Internet, it’s now super easy to create word clouds for any project. Why not include one as a great introduction to your yearbook?
I made this word cloud in seconds using wordclouds.com and the first few paragraphs of this blog. You can set the colours to match your school, and even shape it like your school’s logo.
Imagine how epic a word cloud is going to look with all of your names on it!
Message from the Yearbook Committee
By the time it comes to print the yearbook, you will have invested quite a lot of time and effort into it. But you are doing it for a reason: to provide your classmates with a memento of your schooldays.
Seeing as you are the school heroes – the ones who put the work in when no-one else was willing – we think that you are more than entitled to begin your yearbook with a message from the yearbook committee.
Cover Page
There’s a super easy way to combat the blank page syndrome we talked about earlier. Just add a background to the page.
If you have a consistent style throughout your yearbook, this introduces and establishes the theme from the very get-go.
That’s enough for now. If you still have blank page syndrome, the best cure is to do something to progress your project, whether that’s assigning roles to your crack yearbook committee team, dreaming up daring yearbook theme designs, or shouting loud and proud about your yearbook project.
Bonus: How to Make a Yearbook Using Yearbook Hub
Still hopelessly lost with where to start? We’ve got you covered. Read our guide to starting your yearbook project.
