At Harvard-Westlake, the yearbook is already out. Or at least 25 percent of it is. In an effort to share positive and timely news, the staff decided to print the book in four volumes.
Going the Distance is a blog series about embracing yearbook challenges, available on the Balfour Blog. We hope you’ll enjoy hearing from different advisers and reps around the country.
By Jen Bladen
Harvard-Westlake School
On Saturday, Jan. 23 nearly 800 copies of the first volume of the 2021 Vox Populi yearbook were distributed in a drive-thru event at Harvard-Westlake upper school.
To boost morale and publish timely information about a school year impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Vox Populi staff (made up of 16 freshmen, 10 sophomores, three juniors and four seniors, plus a handful of freelancers) split the yearbook into quarterly volumes.
“We really wanted Harvard-Westlake students to get good news early and often,” Editor-in-Chief Hayley Rothbart ’21 said. “Our theme is ‘Changemakers’ because there is so much changing in our world. The community is adapting to change even as students make changes ourselves.”
The staff incorporated bright colors and circles into the look of the design.
“We want the yearbook to be a source of joy when we distribute it quarterly,” Editor-in-Chief Kacey Kim ’21 said. “The four 80-page volumes will fit perfectly into the slipcase we designed with the cover artist Stephen Williams.”
The first volume included coverage of spring and summer events not included in the 2020 yearbook.
“We relied heavily on student selfies and photos parents captured,” Kim said. “We tried to use a minimal number of Zoom screen captures. Or at least to use interesting versions of those when we were stuck for other content.”
Each spread includes mods and infographics to help support the minimal number of photos available. Vox staff sent out a Google poll to the student body to collect information on a wide variety of topics.
“We also took the entire student body and divided it by the number of students we have on staff,” Rothbart said. “We each have 65 students—some in each grade 7 through 12. It’s our responsibility as staffers to ensure that our 65 kids are featured in the yearbook at least twice.”
A spread from the first volume focuses on COVID-19 impacting California and Harvard-Westlake students.
What President and Head of School Rick Commons refers to as the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism were covered in two four-page sections in Volume 1. Volumes 2 through 4 will feature follow-up spreads with updated statistics on the novel coronavirus and developing information about the Black Lives Matter movement.
“After the first volume was distributed, we met as a staff to critique it spread-by-spread,” proofs editor Violet Barron ’22 said. “It was a great opportunity to see our work in print. The remaining volumes will be more consistent because we took the time to analyze Volume 1.”
Volume 2 will include faculty portraits, self-captured and submitted via EZPix. Selfies of students in grades 7 through 11 will appear in Volume 3. Cap-and-gown portraits of the Class of 2021 will be featured in Volume 4.
“We really hope that by the time we get our caps and gowns we will be able to have our portraits taken by a professional photographer,” managing editor Liam Weetman ’21 said. “We’re prepared to ask seniors for selfies, but we’d really prefer to have them look professional.”
Unless HW returns to in-person school before they publish, Volumes 2 and 3 will be distributed in drive-thru events.
“Because fewer than half of the 1,700 copies we ordered were picked up in January, we are planning a much more thorough marketing plan,” Rothbart said. “Everything happened so fast first quarter. We are much more on top of things now.”
The plan for Volume 4 (which will include the Class of 2021 graduation to come full-circle) is to mail individual copies to students at their pandemic mailing addresses.
“We really hope we’re in-person by the time that happens. It would be nice to have a post-graduation, on-campus distribution party this summer,” Kim said. “Safety will always come first. We really want everything surrounding the yearbook to be a positive experience.”
Jen Bladen, M.Ed., MJE, has been a yearbook professional since 1998: first as a high school adviser in San Diego, then as a Balfour sales rep. From 2006-2015 and again starting in the fall of 2020, Bladen teaches at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, California, advising the Pacemaker Finalist and Silver Crown-winning Vox Populi yearbook. While Bladen virtually teaches full time in Los Angeles, she calls Tulsa, Oklahoma, home. Follow @jenbladen and @hwvox on Instagram. Email jbladen@hw.com or us-yearbook@hw.com.
