The Trivium, which is also the photo-journalism class, dedicates the entire school year and parts of the summer to creating the yearbook. It showcases events from the first day of school, all the way up to graduation, and even students’ summer adventures before the next school year. From baby ads to club photos, every student on the Trivium staff plays a crucial role in creating the yearbook. In the past the yearbook has won many awards, such as the VHSL trophy class for the past two years in a row.
Each student on the Trivium staff is assigned a job or spreads, which is a page dedicated to a club, sport, or class, that they will work on for the remainder of the school year. Some experienced students are appointed to editors or managers (i.e. sports editor, editor in chief) according to their interests by the yearbook advisor Mr. Brian Hamelman. During the first few weeks of school most new photo-journalism students learn photography, interviewing, and captioning skills. After learning the basics, most of the new students are placed in groups of 2-4 to work on yearbook spreads
Junior Willow Moles, a first year member of the Trivium staff, has been working on various spreads throughout the year with her group mates, junior Taina Covington and senior Kat Smith. After taking pictures of a club, sport, or class event, they get quotes and caption the photos.
“Once we get all of our information, Mr. Hamelmen will help us build our spread in Adobe Indesign, which is used in professional settings… He helps us figure out where the photos and captions are going, how we’ll lay it out, and the color scheme of the spread,” said Moles. “Once we put everything into Indesign, we’ll sit down with Mr. Hamelmen and our editors-in-chief and they’ll help us figure out any issues we have and fix all our typos, verify our information, and align it properly.”
Being part of the Trivium staff has helped Moles improve upon her organization skills, due to the numerous deadlines that come with putting spreads together. She has also improved her people skills.
Senior editor-in-chief Madi Poulson has also expanded upon her people skills, among other things, in her three years on the Trivium staff.
“When I first joined Photo-jurnalism, I was very shy when getting quotes from people, but now it’s just second-nature. I’ve gotten so used to figuring out how to crack some open when interviewing them… I try to ask open-ended questions that will lead to me getting an interesting quote. I think about the type of quotes I want and I try to nudge the person I’m interviewing in that direction,” said Poulson. “The skills I’ve learned from the software will be very beneficial as well.”
The graphic design skills Poulson has learned in this class have encouraged her to go into social media marketing after high school. The graphic designing and leadership skills have also been useful on college and scholarship applications.
“Adobe Indesign gives students real-world skills in an industry-standard software. Most employers want backgrounds in creative fields,” said Hamelmen. “If you can say that you have experience in Indesign you can show employers you can make pamphlets, posters, layout entire books, and more.”
Every year a new theme is chosen that is showcased in each yearbook spread that is chosen by Mr. Hamelmen and his senior staff that is relevant and interesting to the student population. This year’s theme is “Worlds Collide”.
“We chose this year’s theme because we wanted to showcase the unique abilities and interests of our students, and how these things can cause students to be experts in one field or another and how they excel in their world,” said Hamelmen.
They want to show how these “worlds” interact and collide within the school. The theme is seen throughout the yearbook by showcasing students with diverse talents.
Yearbook orders were due April 12. Yearbooks will be handed out at the beginning of next school year during a combined lunch.
