If you’re creating your own yearbook with our Creator software or online yearbook designer, you may be looking for artwork to use as backgrounds, textures and clipart.
There’s already lots of pre-designed backgrounds and clipart to choose from in our create your own yearbook software and online app, however you may have a specific yearbook theme or design in mind. If you’re short of time, but have a bit left in your budget, there are plenty of image stock websites where you can download ready-made artwork using credits. Here are a few suggested sites to get you started:
Online yearbook artwork sites
- Stock Exchange (http://www.sxc.hu/) – Free image library. Be sure to check the ‘Availability’ of images before you download them, as they may have restrictions.
- iStock (http://www.istockphoto.com/) – One of the largest image libraries around, you have to pay a little more for credits in order to download artwork, but you’re bound to find something to fit your yearbook brief here.
- 123RF (http://www.123rf.com/) – For those looking for yearbook imagery on a bit of a budget, this site has plenty of choice, and credits are cheaper then iStock.
**Make sure you buy the image at a large enough size for your page (216 x 303mm at 300 dpi), otherwise the image will be too small and be low quality when printed.
If you’d rather make up your own artwork, there’s plenty out there to work with…
Other yearbook artwork ideas
- Craft shops – these are great places to get artwork for your yearbook, you’re bound to find a huge selection of different papers, material and other goodies to scan in and use on your yearbook pages.
- Gather items from around you – collect stuff from around school, or at home. This will give a more personal feel to your yearbook as some of the items might be memorable.
- Take photos around school – photos of the school buildings, trips, etc. work really well as backgrounds. Use one large image per page, or make up montages the size of your page (216 x 303 mm). If you’re able to adjust the opacity of your photos using an image editing program, try making your images at least 80% opacity and check you can read any text you place on top of the images.
- Make your own – it’ll take a little more time, but if you want a completely unique yearbook, why not create your yearbook background artwork yourself using an image editing program (such as Photoshop). Alternatively, get hands on with pens, pencils and paint!
