How do you create a yearbook for a year that hardly felt real?

This was the question I faced when I became Editor in Chief of my high-school yearbook at the height of the pandemic. My issue would be the only memento of a year that felt like a blur, and there was no way to know what the world would look like in a year.

What my co-editor and I did know was that our community needed a reminder of the good. Short for “In the end, we’ll rise up,” Rise Up was a metaphor for a sunrise — starting in darkness, ending in light — and a call for resilience. It focused on the pandemic’s bright spots: the creativity, community, and hope that bloomed in spite of uncertainty. I built its identity around a sunrise motif, using a semicircle-based design system and a warm, natural palette to create an airy aesthetic that contrasted with the year’s heaviness.

Choosing this theme only a few months into lockdown, no idea what lay ahead, felt risky, but it paid off. Shortly after we sent Rise Up to print, vaccinations became widely available, and we handed Rise Up to our graduating class in person. It went on to earn the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Gold Crown, an honor given to only 17 yearbooks nationwide, and the National Scholastic Press Association's All-American Ranking, reserved for the top 5% of yearbooks.