DMJ Yearbook 2025-2026
Designing the cover, opening spreads, and editorial layout system for the 2025–2026 school yearbook — a 200+ page printed book documenting a year on campus.
- Year
- 2026
- Role
- Lead Designer
- Tools
- Pictavo, Photoshop
- Format
- Hardcover · 112 pages
For the DMJ 25-26 yearbook, the theme needed to be represented in the best way possible. The goal was to fully recreate the Spotify Wrapped look and feel, while capturing the school year in the most memorable way possible.
The brief
Help design the yearbook from the cover down: a fresh visual identity, a flexible grid system, and consistent typographic rules that anyone on the yearbook staff could follow. The book had to feel timeless, photographic, and unmistakably from this year — not a recycled template.
Building the system
I built a 12-column grid with three layout primitives — full-bleed, half-spread, and quote callout — that could be combined into any page type. Type pairs a tight display sans for sections with an italic serif for moments. Every spread is built from the same kit, so the book reads as one document instead of a stack of templates.
The cover
The cover needed to feel like it captured the Spotify mood, not a yearbook. One of the new times that judging a book by its cover would be appropriate, because when you saw that for the first time you knew you were in for a treat.
