At the beginning of this year, Ali Edwards posted about selecting a single word for the year. My word was "Output". For all of the web surfing, buying programs, buying online courses, buying digital kits, reading blogs, writing blog posts, buying books and magazines, I had nothing to hold in my hands and show others (that were not as geeky as me) what all my time and money had been spent for. Well last night, a chance to use some of what I have learned came to pass.
My daughter is a senior this year and as parents of said senior we are expected to buy a page in the yearbook and dedicate the page to the said senior with pictures, well wishes and congratulations for making the grade to graduation.
(Yearbooks are not like they used to be anymore. I am scared to think what they will be like when my son gets to be a senior. I personally like the way we used to have yearbooks, but hey that's another story - blog post).
The senior page was due today. So last night I foraged through pictures of 17 something years to come up with a page proving my child had parents that took pictures from the time that they were born till now. Thanks to "Library of Memories", the class I have run through three years now at Big Picture, they were fairly in order.
Now, according to their directions you were to pick a diagram, pick the same number of pictures to fill the boxes, number the back of the picture and then write the picture's number in the boxes it was intended and enclose a check in the provided envelope with your "Dear Senior, we are so proud of you" letter to be printed on the same page.
I picked a whole page layout from the packet of Xeroxed copies of diagrams (they looked much like what we digital scrapbookers call templates) and chose to stick with a classic "Black and White" page. I chose pictures from the time she was a baby to the present and focused on a theme, her smile. (Design 101 from all of the graphic web designer blogs I read and study......."KISS"........Keep It Simple Stupid). Then I converted all of the pictures to Black and White using Lightroom Presets from Andie at Pink Ink Studios. Then I created my own PSD template using clipping masks to arrange and resize my photos according to the diagram. (thank you's going to all of the people who write tutorials and share their knowledge). With all of the people who influenced the design and creation of my daughters senior page, via the web, videos, DVDs, and books you would be most certain that it would not need "customization"
My daughter turned in the page in the next morning and they charged her extra for "customization". What?! They told her that they may have to take the page apart and "reconstruct" it. That word makes me shutter and not with a camera. In last years Yearbook, I saw that some of the pictures that parents sent in where way distorted and I know it had to be because of "reconstruction".
Now we wait until the end of the school year and pray that there was no need to "reconstruct". In the end, hopefully, there will be a page of photographs,......... published,................... in a book,........... accessible without a computer that she can touch and share. Photographs and a layout that I am pretty sure she will be proud of................I think. (you know how finicky seniors are)LOL
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