Cover Design NAHS Graduation cover design competition

Each year Mr. Davis gives us the opportunity to design the graduation ceremony program cover. This is a big opportunity because over 4,000 students, parents, and community members attend the events and over 4,000 programs are made with our designs on the front cover!

Graduation is defined as the ceremony of conferring degrees or diplomas, as at a college or school. It is the celebration of the completion of a student's high school experience and the beginning of a new chapter of life.

This project is an introduction to layout design. We'll move through the design process similarly to the way we worked on other projects, but in this case we'll emphasize the composition of the program cover--the way you choose to layout and draw the elements you want to use to define the event.

A great layout WORKS. It does what you set out to do--helps the reader quickly and easily understand your message. It also ORGANIZES. The typography maps out a visual path for readers to follow--shows what comes first, second, and third by using type hierarchy and effective illustrations. Lastly, it ATTRACTS. Your design should grab your reader's attention and pull them into your design.

We'll take a look at some of the most successful covers from the past, but even after looking at them you'll want to consider what these events mean to the people who will spend time with your design. What makes sense for them to see when they look at the cover of a graduation program? How can you reconceptualize what is often a very boring design? What can you say about this class, about this event, or about our school that's different than what you've seen in the past?

To begin, we’ll make 25 thumbnail sketches--all at 3” x 4.” The thumbnails should each represent a new idea--not just a new rendering of the same idea. This will be hard, but it’ll be worth it to get to an incredible idea. These sketches should be in color (unless you're designing for the Baccalaureate cover) and reflect font choices. (If you need to trace fonts, do so.) Having clearly articulated thumbnails makes it much easier for us to talk about your ideas and see what you intend for the final piece. Plus, it will make it easier to use for your final layouts.

Your 25 thumbnail sketches are due at the start of your class. We'll narrow those down so that your final sketches are due the following week.

If you need inspiration, remember some of the layout artists that we've looked at including Christoph Niemann, Milton Glaser, Jessica Walsh, David Carson, and Stefan Sagmeister. And how about these incredible movie posters?!

Also, we've been doing this for over a decade now, so you can take a look at some of the winners from previous years here.

And here are a couple of videos to consider when you're starting to work with layout design. Here's one about layout itself and here's one about type hierarchy!

We'll only narrow these sketches down to two final sketches--full color and full sized. And then it's only Adobe Illustrator to make them professional and press ready!

Once the designs have been finalized in Adobe Illustrator, remember that you'll need an Adobe Illustrator file and an outlined Adobe PDF that you share with me on Google Drive. All files should be titled project_lastname_detail.ai and project_lastname_detail.pdf. So, an example would be graduation_Stager_feather.ai.

All final pdfs of the covers are due on March 25.

As you would imagine, the covers will be graded on the three characteristics of a good layout, attention to detail, and skillfulness using Adobe Illustrator, so ask yourself these questions before you finish:

1. Is it clear that my design would be the cover for a pamphlet for a graduation ceremony?
2. Have I used type hierarchy to emphasize particular pieces of typography over others? Have I chosen two fonts that contrast with each other to further emphasize the important text?
3. Is my pamphlet unique and attractive? Will people want to spend time with it to examine the details and figure out the layers of meaning that I'm trying to get across?
4. Have I made the best use of all of the tools in Adobe Illustrator? Are my drawings impressive? Have I gotten in close to make sure everything is clean and intentionally made?
5. Have I made sure that the illustrations truly represent what I'm trying to portray and have I added adequate detail to them to make them feel realistic and skillful?

If you've got those questions covered, you're ready to hand it in for the competition!