ERIN MITCHELL
DESIGN
The following includes some of my best design examples. The majority of these designs will appear in the 2015-2016 Troy High yearbook, with the exception of the design from the 2015 JEA/NSPA cover and endsheet contest from the conference in Orlando, Flordia. Click on any of the thumbnails to view the full design along with my explanation of why it was chosen for my portfolio.
Since this year is our first year doing a chronological book, one of my biggest worries was that students won't understand the organization of the book when seeing it for the first time. I think our divider design not only cuts down on confusion, but does it in an aesthetically pleasing way. The inserts in the calendar show both what date a certain event occurred on and also act as a sneak preview for what will be shown in the next few pages.
This was the first spread I ever designed, and I'm happy to say I'm very satisfied with the way it turned out. I started with so many different ideas in mind that it was a bit of a mess at first, but it all came together nicely to become something that I'm proud to call my own work.
This design was inspired by a fashion spread in a magazine. Spirit week apparel is something I felt our yearbook had skimmed over in previous years, and I wanted to capture the excitement and school pride that homecoming week brings. What makes this spread one of my favorites is that we managed to get the whole homecoming banner in the background of the pictures - it's subtle, but it really ties everything together.
This cover is, out of everything that I've done on yearbook staff over the past three years, the piece of work that I am most proud of. It meets all of the requirements we had talked about as a staff prior to designing - we wanted something fresh, bold, colorful and different. The typography of 'True Story' with TROY standing out helps to tie our theme to our school. It took a long time to get right; I went through countless versions of the cover before landing on a design I was happy with.
When I first learned the theme for the JEA/NSPA write off was "Be Heard" I'll confess that I was a bit underwhelmed. It wasn't a theme that particularly resonated with me, and I found it hard to relate to. However, after putting some thought into it, I was able to come up with a design that fit not only the theme but also went along with my own personal style, and it's something that I'm proud of. (This design won an 'Excellent' Award at the JEA/NSPA 2015 Conference in Orlando, Florida)