My school has created a yearbook in GSuite for the past 4 years, and each year we get better. And each year, we get new students and have to start all over again. At the beginning of the year, we focused on photography and graphic design in Google Slides. Now that it is December, we need to focus on yearbook layout.
Some of my fellow educators use expensive yearbook companies. To be honest, these friends may be ahead of us because they are using company created templates and software. My students, on the other hand, creating everything from scratch in Google Slides, which means intensive lessons on graphic design.
The work does not bother me, however, because I know that these lessons will improve their artistic and creative abilities.
Today we focused on creating a Basic Yearbook. Insert 4-5 images, a title, and captions. Pay attention to photo size, color combinations, font pairs, and layout. Sounds easy, right? No. The biggest mistake made was manually resizing photos.
Use "Lock aspect ratio"
When resizing a photo, always, always, always, "lock aspect ratio." Otherwise, the image gets distorted. No one wants a bad photo in the yearbook.
- Click on the image.
- Select Format options.
- Check Lock aspect ratio.
Shortcut
Some students really want shortcuts, which is why they click and drag the image. Try this instead:
CTRL + ALT + J
Conclusion
Tomorrow the students will continue this lesson. Their goal is to make their pages as good as, if not better, than my example. I have full confidence in them. We just need practice and maintain high standards.