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Self Evaluation When I first moved to California, I had no idea about what I wanted to do in my life or if I was even talented in anything. It wasn’t until I took Digital Art that I realized even though I can’t draw, I am still creatively talented. After taking this class, I decided yearbook would be a good class for me to participate in, since it would give me a small taste of what working in Graphic Media would be like.
Yearbook wasn’t anything like I expected it to be. Eveyone was very close with eachother, and there was barely any drama, which is a rare case in a highschool class. Coming in as a photographer, everyone was extremely kind and gracious to me when I got confused or just didn’t know something. I never felt excluded from anything, and yearbook honestly felt like a family.
Reflection #2 Although Yearbook is a very fun experience, it also requires a lot of work. If you’re not doing your part, the whole yearbook can crumble and become something less than what it could have been. I believe I was an important assett to this year’s Odyssey Yearbook for many reasons.
In Yearbook. I was in charge of organizing the production of the book as well as making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing. I also helped with the design of many pages, as seen below.
That being said, Yearbook is a lot of hardwork. When it comes down to it, everyone is responsible for everything, and there is no room for procrastination. Deadlines were persistant and plentiful, which taught me to prioritze my responsibilities and remain calm. Anxiety used to be an emotion I would deal with regularly, but now that I have had to carry the responsibility of multiple tasks at one time, I’ve become much more relaxed and motivated.
My second year in Yearbook I was the editor-in-chief, which came with many more responsibilities. At the beginning, I was worried about how stressed i would become later on in the year. However, I soon realized that if you just take a deep breath, maybe right a list of all the responsibilities you need to do, that leadership isn’t as hard as it seems like it would be. I believe Yearbook was a very important class for me to take. It allowed me to open up and experience things a normal class wouldn’t have shown me. It taught me discipline, prioritizing, and how to stop being so stressed out all of the time, which I beleive is a very important thing for all teenagers to learn. Without Yearbook, I probably would still be lost with what I want to do in my future. Now, however, I am able to focus on what I want as well as make consistant plans on how to get there, all without losing motivation to actually accomplish my goals.
I stayed in during lunches and other class periods in order to insure that the yarbook was looking the best that it could be. I checked and double checked everything before it was submitted, and caught many mistakes in the process that i was able to fix. Without me, I believe there would have been a lot more mistakes in the yearbook.
Reflection #3 Yearbook has shown me that there are a lot of things that could go unexpectedly wrong in anything one intends to do. Especially with media, important deadlines create stress on all of the staff workers, and mistakes are made in a rush to get everything submitted and finilized on time.
I also had problems with some of the staff members. The problem with a group project (and yearbook is definitely a group project) is that not everyone is as invested in the yearbook as you are. That can be a hard thing to overcome when they are responsible for a lot of things but are refusing to put their best effort into said tasks. At first, I felt very overwhelmed and annoyed. With some creativity, however, I was able to fix their mistakes and also make them more motivated for future responsibilities. I also had a hard time with staff members who did not believe I was a good fit as editor-in-cheif. A few years ago, that would have bothered me like nothing else, and I would have gone out of my way to make them change their mind, which in my experience has only lead to more problems. I began to understand that not everyone was going to like me or the way I run things, and I had to be okay with that. Of course, I took their complaints to hear,t, but if I believed that the complaint was just pettiness and not an actual problem I chose to ignore it. being a leader, I had to realize that it is impossible to be likes by everyone, but it is possible to stay civil with all of them.
Another problem I had was keep staff members motivated. Towards second semester, many of them became tired and sluggish when it came to the designs of the yearbook as well as pictures. I had to keep reminding them that yearbook is a year round commitment, and can’t be finished half hazardly. I also told them that we were likely to win an award for how nice the yearbook was, if only they continued to work hard on it. It appealed to their sense of competition and pride, and soon everyone was much more motivated to finish the book strong.
I believe, that overall, I was able to solve any problems that came my way. Now I have information and advice for the next year’s editor-in-chief that will make Yearbook run a lot more smoothly than it has in the past.
Reflection #4 At the beginning of the year, I had many intentions on what I wanted the Yearbook to accomplish and what I wanted it to look like. I intended to win an award, and of course I wanted the Yearbook to be better than any of the other ones before. Although it didn’t happen the way I planned it to, I was very happy with the Yearbook we created. At the beginning of the year, it was really hard to make sure everything was coordinated correctly. Coming up with a theme and doing something completely different from the years before was extremely challenging. I decided that since the past two years have used soft rounded shapes, I wanted to use triangles, which proved to be a very difficult goal. Triangles, as we soon found out, weren’t really cut out for pictures. With a lot of work and planning however, the other designers and I were able to make it work beautifully. The result was a very different yearbook. Another thing I wanted to do was to modernize the yearbook. Highschool students as a whole aren’t really fond of reading, and a lot of copy would just be a waste of space. I thought that a magazine layout would be a lot more efficient in relating to the students and would also make the whole book more graphically enjoyable. Bigger pictures and a lot less copy made the yearbook come off less as a traditional, boring book and more like an inviting magazine that highschoolers might just read anyways.
A diffictult accomplishment in yearbook is to keep everyone motivated throughout the entire year and also to make everyone enjoy what the book looks like. Of course, not everyone is going to like all of the ideas I make, but I tried very hard to make sure the vast majority did. During the theme decision process, I allowed everyone to get a chance to speak out, and eventually a new, more universally liked theme came out of it. Although it was not my first choice at a theme. United as One spoke to our graduating year more than my idea, Balance of Opposites, did. I realized that a good leader and editor would forfeit their idea for one that more people agreed with. Although this year’s yearbook didn’t come out exactly as I planned, it still turned out wonderful and, in a different way, better than I expected. My goal was to win an award and get as few complaints as possible, and I beleivee, with the help of the yearbook staff, we were able to make that happen.
Reflection #5
Favorite Piece
My first year as part of the Odyssey Yearbook staff was the last semester of my junior year. It took me awhile to figure out that I was talented in graphic designes and readily enjoyed it, so I started in yearbook pretty late. At first, I was a photographer. I took a lot of pictures that I didn’t think I was talented enough to take, and many of them ended up in the Yearbook. I have definitely changed a lot in the past two years, and I honestly believe I have become a better person.
Before I became a part of yearbook, I was in a photography class. I honestly had no interest in taking pictures before this class, where I realized I have some talent when it comes to photgraphy and understanding what looks good and what doesn’t. I was able to discover what I likes to take pictures of, and was able to turn that around into taking pictures for yearbook.
Taking pictures soon didn’t become enough for me, and I wanted to learn how to design the actual pages and gain some more graphic experience. The next year, I became editor-in-cheif, which came with a lot more responsibility, However, it allowed me to mature in different ways, both mentally and with my graphic design skills. I was able to incorporate my art style in how I designed my pages, while still holding true to the theme and angles we were using. I used a lot of techniques I learned in my photography and digital art class to create focal points and I also used negative space to my advantage.
I believe I grew a lot over the past two years with my art skills. Yearbook really helped me to become a better person with new skills that are going to help me in my future career. This was a very valuable experience that I took part in, and I will always look back on it fondly.
My most significant piece this year would probably have to be the cover design. I remember when we were assigned to come up with ideas for the cover, and I had no idea what to do. I sat there for hours trying to think of something, which is usually how my creative process works. Finally, bits and pieces came to me. I wanted to do something different than the years before. I wanted to add pictures, as well as our mascot but not in a cartoony, silly way. I wanted to show the true personality of the animal that is our mascot. The wildcats are very fierce, and not silly at all. They really show the school’s strength and independence. Continuing with the theme, I wanted to show that we are all still united together, even when we are independent. You always need people in your life, no matter now introverted you are. A crowd, where personal space is invaded but hardly ever in a bad way, was a good symbol for what I wanted to show.
Accomplishing this page took hours for me to do. I had to find the perfect picture of the wildcat, as well as receive rights to it, so I could even use it in the yearbook. I then had to find a crowd that symbolized what I wanted to show. Afterwards, I had to decide how best to incorporate each of these together without making it look weird, which was taking me a long time to figure out. It came to me in pieces, and I had to go with the trial and error method until I found a good way to create unity and to show our theme effectively.
Other Pieces
Student Life - Designed Page
Student Life - Designed Page
Organizations - Designed Page
Student Life - Designed Page
Graduating June 8, 2017