McNary “Class of 73”

Print
Image Editing

Freelance

Independent

Group / Party

January 22, 2023 - June 20, 2023

McNary “Class of 1973” Reunion Committee

High School Reunion Name Tags

Graphic Designer / Photo Editor

Layout
Typography
Color
Image Reparations
School Logo Reconstruction
Graduation Year
Student Names
Photos

Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fonts)
Avery (avery.com)

Being tasked with designing the five hundred McNary high school name tags for the class of 1973, a committee member met with me to coordinate the time table and determine layout content for the design. Two samples were made for the name tags, in portrait and landscape orientation, so the committee would have options in determining the basis for the entire set. The two samples needed a student photo and name, as well as the class year, and the school logo and color palette. While all fonts included in the design were determined using Adobe Fonts, the student photo was scanned from the yearbook and retouched on Adobe Photoshop, before going to Avery.com. Without the McNary logo on file, it had to be reconstructed, in both blue and white, on Adobe Illustrator. And then, after all the content was finished, Avery allowed me to organize it into the sample designs with a visual balance, while using the school color palette of blue and white. The background was given white around the edges, not just to follow the color palette, but also to leave the trimming of the name tags open to interpretation, later on. The reunion committee chose the landscape name tag sample. And it came time to scan all five hundred senior photos, and make sure they were all consistent with the yearbook. By desaturating and filtering them one by one. A short few names and photos were added to the list throughout my process. Nearly all of the photos were either damaged or visually cluttered, so Adobe Photoshop was used to retouch them one by one and resize their dimensions automatically. On Adobe Illustrator, all the student names were typed out and sized in correlation to the length of each name. Throughout the process, the names and photos were organized using last and first names as file titles. On Avery, the chosen design sample was copied into rows of name tags to make a whole set of five hundred. And without automation, the student names and photos replaced those from the sample copies manually. The name tags were organized in alphabetical order to be printed by last name, except for two memorial students who were added very late in the process. Their names were included at the end of the set and McNary Celtic silhouette illustrations were used for their pictures. Once the entire set of name tags was finished, it was downloaded as a PDF file to be printed on US letter sheets. The committee was provided with all the files relevant to the name tag set and their yearbook was returned. While assisting them with the specifications, a committee member ordered all five hundred name tags from Staples. They were responsible for trimming and organizing the name tags from that point on.

“They look great. Two committee members have already responded with rave reviews. You are good at this.” Committee Member, McNary “Class of 1973” Reunion Committee
“Thank you, Sam. You are very good at this and have high standards.” Committee Member, McNary “Class of 1973” Reunion Committee
“Great. I was hoping for a file we could save and use again.” Committee Member, McNary “Class of 1973” Reunion Committee
“Nice work.” Committee Member, McNary “Class of 1973” Reunion Committee
“Every classmate was impressed with the name tags. Especially the photos.” Committee Member, McNary “Class of 1973” Reunion Committee