Yearbook Portrait Pages

Perhaps the most challenging pages to create for the yearbook are the portrait pages. If you can get these pages right, the rest of the pages I’ll ask for should be no problem!

I’ve given you some past yearbooks to look at for inspiration and guidance. You can check those out HERE

When you open your document, just make sure that the Color Settings are still set to Jostens 2022.

If they’re not (like mine), click Load and find that .csf file you should have moved into your Yearbook folder

When adding elements to your pages, remember what the guides are for!

The outer guide (red area) is the BLEED. This part will be cut off. You extend page backgrounds or perhaps some images or shapes to the edge of the red, but it will be cut off. NOTHING should END right between the yellow and red areas. If you want something to go to the edge of the page, extend it into the red.

The yellow area is the danger zone. Never put anything super important in that area. The page should be cut right on the line between the yellow and the red, but it isn’t always precise, so you may lose parts of the yellow. Extend backgrounds, shapes, perhaps some pictures into the yellow, but never put text or people’s faces there.

The green area is just a margin. You CAN put anything in there, but it’s wise to give yourself a bit of a margin, so you may not want to use that area (although if you need the space, go right ahead.)

The blue area is totally safe. Fill that up however you want!

Between the pages there’s a “GUTTER.” This is the area where the book folds. You probably won’t be able to see or read anything in that area. Backgrounds and shapes should go into that area for sure. Some pictures can go in there, but try to keep faces out of there. Text should NEVER go in that area.

NOTE: I am showing you MY DESIGN. YOUR DESIGN should be different! I do not want a bunch of pages that look exactly like mine! You get marks for creativity, and copying me is NOT CREATIVE!

The first thing you may wish to consider is the BACKGROUND. That place holder image that I put on my Parent page is not designed to be used on more than one spread. You need to choose your own backgrounds. Those can be fairly plain (colours and shapes), artistic (things drawn/created in Illustrator or Photoshop), or a photo that is fairly plain and doesn’t need to be paid attention to. Look at those sample yearbooks for some ideas.

On my PARENT pages, I have 3 layers. The page numbers are on the TOP layer. I would LOCK THAT LAYER and never put anything else on it!

My background image is on the bottom layer. Keep the frame with the background image UNLOCKED

When I switch to my individual pages, I will put all of my content on Layer 2

Switch out of the Parent page and onto one of your spreads (two pages beside each other)

To edit the background and replace it, activate the Selection tool (press v or click it in the tool bar) then hold SHIFT and Ctrl and click on the background. Now you can place something new in there. There are some photos that my photography students took that you may want to consider. You can find those HERE. Of course, not every page should have a picture in the background, so you could use colours, shapes, or artistic elements instead. You may also want Westwood logos somewhere on your pages. You can find those HERE.

If you want to use Westwood logo colours in your design, you can put the following values in when choosing a colour:

Maroon : 9f1c36

Grey : 939598

Once you’ve placed your background into that frame on Layer 1, I highly recommend locking it!

At the top of the page (or both pages), you should have a title that indicates which pages you are designing. You can choose to do grade 9, 10, 11, 12, or the staff portrait pages.

Notice how the shape extends all the way to the outer edge of the red (and beyond.) You can make that as far past that line as you want. I like to make mine extra big. You can press W to see what it’ll look like:

Keep in mind that part of it will get cut off, but without the guides and lines, it looks pretty nice:

Again, all of my added elements will go between the background and the page numbers! You can have as many layers as you like in between, but I’ll keep everything on Layer 2

To make life even easier, you can rename your layers if you like in order to remind you what they are for. Double click on a layer name and you can rename it!

For the next step, activate the Frame tool (press F). You can click and hold on the tool in the toolbar if you want frames that are circular/elliptical or polygonal for a more creative and unique design

I’ll drag out a rectangular frame. I’ll have to guess the size.

Make sure you can see your Properties panel. If not, all panels can be found in the Window menu. With that frame still selected, I’ll change a couple of options in order to make life a lot easier.

I’ll open those Frame Fitting Options. I HIGHLY recommend turning on Auto-Fit, setting the Fitting to Fill Frame Proportionally, and making sure that they Align From the centre.

You may wish to add a stroke to your frames. That way the pictures don’t just kind of blend together. I personally like to use Westwood logo colours fairly often, so if you wish to use them anywhere, you can put in those colour values I listed near the top of the page (Maroon : 9f1c36 or Grey : 939598).

Each picture needs a name. I usually do those below each picture, but some layouts have the names in a list on the side. You can choose, but mine will be below.

Switch to the Type tool (press T) and draw out a smaller box that’s the same width as the picture frame.

I’ll fill mine with school logo grey. Since the picture frame has a 1pt stroke, if I want my text box to be exactly the same size, I’ll add a 1pt stroke to the text box as well.

FYI, I have my frames lined up with that inner guide right now, but if I need more space, I’ll move them left to the next guide:

When I use text frames, I like the text to sit in the middle of the box, not the top. Select the box with the Selection tool and press Ctrl + B. I recommend changing the Vertical Justification to Centre.

. I

Still with the Selection tool, I’m going to select the picture frame and the text frame by dragging a box over both of them

I need a lot more of these but I don’t want to go through all of the steps to make them look the same, so I’ll copy those. Press and hold ALT to drag out a copy. To make sure that they line up, press Shift as well. So I’ll hold Shift + Alt, click on those frames and drag a copy to the right.

You can leave a bit of space in between if you like or line them up side by side.

You could keep doing that one at a time OR once you’ve got two, select both and drag those out to make it four.

Once I’ve got four, I like to select again and drag out another 4. 8 across is probably a good number but you can add more if you like, depending on the layout you’ve chosen.