Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff
The creativity of NDSS’s 2016-2017 yearbook class earned some international recognition recently as its work was included in Lifetouch’s Creative Inspiration.
Known as a textbook of sorts for yearbook designs, Creative Inspiration showcases examples of outstanding layouts from schools across Canada and the U.S.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands of applications that go in and only the best of the best make it,” explained Lorraine Commerford, a yearbook sales professional with Lifetouch who visited NDSS on Thursday to make a special presentation. “Napanee was featured in three double-page spreads in the book.”
It was the NDSS students’ innovative idea of overlaying photos on a themed background that impressed the Creative Inspiration editors. For team photos they superimposed the group shots over the school’s rugby pitch. They took a similar approach with graduation photos and a school trip to Vimy Ridge.
The book was put together under the guidance of NDSS teacher Deborah Paddle-Grant, who teaches yearbook design as a fully-accredited course. Its broken down into two semesters.
“It’s a pretty big deal because some schools don’t have yearbook anymore,” said Paddle-Grant on winning the award. “It’s hard to sell print with students now. So for some schools its not flourishing the way it should be and that’s a sad thing because people regret it 10 years from now.”
Paddle-Grant points to a tent sale of old yearbooks the school had last year where they sold $2,000 worth of books in just two hours with former students looking to replace a lost book or acquire a yearbook they didn’t buy in their teen years.
Former NDSS student Breanna Williams, who served as editor of the 2016-2017 edition, was on hand to accept a certificate from Commerford. Along with editing the entire book, Williams also came up with the design for the Europe trip, using photos she had taken.
“I was in the second- semester yearbook class so I really got to put the pages together,” recalled Williams. “It was a lot of work but I really appreciate the experience. I got so familiarized with how to put pictures together and make them balance. It was really cool to figure out how to balance headings, borders, letters and the colours to use for the backgrounds and how to level out the photos.”
She continues to use what she learned at the post-secondary level as she is pursuing a career in library archival studies.
Her work and that of her classmates will now be memorialized in a book that may inspire the next generation of yearbook editors.