As I have had experience with designing from my previous years at the school, I was selected as one of the editors-in-chief of the yearbook club for this academic year. I once took part in the yearbook club in 2022 (Grade 9), where I developed many skills such as digital designing, communicating and collaborative skills. With the mind of developing these skills further, I am participating in the yearbook club as a leader. Each session, I make a concerted effort to reach the designated goal for each of the sessions. These goals include completion of specific pages assigned to different members, and communicating with the teachers (for the principal’s letter, ASA descriptions, events, etc.). Furthermore, I progress my leadership skills by guiding my peers to explore unfamiliar Adobe InDesign tools.
We are a group of about 10 members, followed by two teacher supervisors. We started our first-ever session by providing roles to each of our members. As a leader, I am in charge of communicating with the staff members when necessary, as well as making announcements to the school. The first few lessons were spent planning a design for the cover page and came across an idea for overlapping an eyebird view of students in the form of an infinity symbol. Peter and I, as the two leaders, worked together coordinating this shot, but due to the rainy season and the lack of free time from students we had to neglect the idea. For the following 2 lessons, I spent sending out emails to each of the teachers in charge of the ASAs and the service groups asking for a description of their activity. The rest of the days, I was designing different pages, including individual photo pages, dividers and covers. Lastly, I edited the individual photos and added a creative background as instructed by my yearbook supervisors.
Throughout the semester, significant progress in my designing skills and fluency around the tools used were shown. For instance, instead of adding the background to individual pictures one by one, I was able to discover a way to automate it so that it automatically adds the selected background to students in each grade. As the semester comes to an end, I realised that my time management skills, when it comes to the yearbook club, needs to be improved. I tend to take more time than necessary to finish a task given due to various distractions. Improved time management will also encourage the rest of the members to be more productive, as I am being a good role model as a leader. Though there were some setbacks such as the idea for the cover page being neglected, we were still able to make significant progress in designing different pages, adding creative backgrounds to individual photos, and reaching out to teachers for descriptions of their activities. All in all, it was a productive and fulfilling experience being a part of the yearbook club this semester.
