Written by Kim Kokernot
Full-time students will receive an all-color yearbook, the first in Harding’s history, when they pick up their free copy April 23.The “Petit Jean,” Harding’s yearbook, switched printing companies from Jostens to Walsworth this year, making the upgrade to an all-color book financially possible.
A part-color, part-black-and-white yearbook made by Jostens, the company that has printed the “Petit Jean” for more than 30 years, cost more than an all-color book by Walsworth.”Really, it was just a good deal from Walsworth to get our business,” Harding graduate and the “Petit Jean’s” Editor-in-Chief Katie Ramirez said. “The “Petit Jean” had been with Jostens for a while and [Walsworth] had to bring in something big to get us to switch.”This cost-effective printing left extra room in the budget for other improvements.”We always have a budget every year to stick to, this year we added extra pages to the book since we were already getting full color,” Ramirez said. “It was nice to have the extra budget this year to go towards more pages or better paper material.”Ramirez said she hopes that these changes will make yearbook sections that were once overlooked stand out to students.”I think some sections that were not as enticing to students before will now be visually stimulating, causing the reader to stop and look at a spread and maybe even read the story next to the photos,” Ramirez said.She said she also anticipates that already popular sections will get a second look from student readers now that they have been revitalized by color photography.”I think students will look through the Portrait section of the book more and hopefully will like that their picture is in color,” Ramirez said. “I also think they will really enjoy the extra photo spreads we included in this book, whether in the Student Life section and the Spring Sing photo page or through the Athletics section, where each season was given a photo spread to highlight the best of our sports moments and photography.”With this new appeal, section editors were freed from the restrictions of black and white layouts.”Editors in the Social Clubs and Athletics sections were very excited, as some of the book’s most colorful photos can usually be found in this section,” Ramirez said. “It has been nice to see these sections, and several others, really come alive with the all-color option.”The use of color for each section also influenced the book’s overall theme.”We as a staff just had to be careful with not going overboard with color; we kept the theme really simple,” Ramirez said. “Our idea was subtlety, not just to go crazy with color because we could.”Yearbooks will be available for pickup in the “Petit Jean” office on the second floor of the student center April 23 after chapel.
