We just found out that we are a Pacemaker Finalist again! This is the second year in a row that we have been a finalist, and we could not be more excited! This award is the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for collegiate student media, so to be nominated for it is a HUGE honor!

Labels: pacemaker, razorback

So here's an interesting tidbit. Two spreads (four pages) from the Razorback Yearbook have been featured in a textbook. The book is called Creative Editing and you can check it out on Amazon.com right here.

The publishers are working on a Canadian edition, and we got an email asking for our copyright permissions to use the pages. Of course, we agreed. Here's a picture of the pages in context, so you can see just what this book has to say about our work.

Anyways, it's pretty cool to think that the hard work of UA students is being put into a textbook for other students to use as an example. I'm not sure exactly what year these pages are from, although I know it's near 1993 since that's when Bud Walton opened. But I bet the yearbook staffers from back then would be proud to know their work was still being acknowledged.

And if you want a look at the new things coming from the Razorback staff, we have just put up some sneak peek pages from our 2009 book! You can check them out here on Facebook, or at the Sneak Peek page on our website. Be sure to let us know what you think!
-Megan

Labels: awards, editing, past yearbooks, razorback, textbook, yearbook

My new goal: Find yearbooks from the past and upload them to our "/archive" section.

Well kids, it's happening. Each week we're scanning and uploading more and more of past yearbooks. Johanna has been helping to speed up this process.

Right now I'm happy to report that we've scanned every cover that we have in the Yearbook Office. Yes, I know we're really low in some decades. Don't fear! Megan is searching out these missing books and I'm finding copies all across town.

Soon we'll start uploading pages from these magnificent books. You'll soon be able to read each book on the internet! Sounds like a migraine waiting to happen right? At first we'll be uploading interesting pages/spreads, but eventually we'll have everything on the site. Just give us time.

Do you have any copies? Send them our way!

In the meantime, check out our archive section and tell us what you think in the comments.

Labels: 1900, archive, past yearbooks, razorback

I feel the title of "webmaster" should remind people of cheesy-fingered overweight world-of-war-craft men. Is that who I am? Maybe inside. DEEP inside.

We've made it about a week since moving everything from /new/ to the main location. There are some obvious changes, and some not-so-obvious.

First, I wanted to share some yearbook.uark.edu history. Shannon reminded me of how dreadful some of the old designs for the site were. I had some fun clicking threw the old sites with archive.org.


In 2002, the website had a 90's journalism vibe. It looked like a website you'd visit for daily headlines on campus, but sadly the content didn't agree with its design. Not to mention it was laid out with tables!

But that's okay, it was 2002. There was also a nonfunctional "archive" section; much like ours today (this will change soon). Sometime later that year a new design emerged, borrowed from the 2001-02 yearbook.

Note how the centered, floating site remained, yet most other elements are dropped. A swirly Zapfino typeface appears snuggling with "Georgia, Times New Roman, and serif" for the content text. The links and header are embossed and cut with Photoshop. This would have been Photoshop 6 or 7, and guessing the Yearbook funding of the day, probably version 6. And then things stayed pretty much the same for awhile.

Until this May, when we launched our new website. It was extremely overdue and offered a very vibrant, fresh approach to the Razorback's online presence. Using a .png drop shadow, the still-centered site added depth. It also felt interactive, with "submit" buttons for photos and stories.

The navigation took a modern turn, opting for an all-at-the-top approach, rather than split on the sides. "Events" and "Archive" came closer together, along with other pages in the yearbook-webby family. The "sneak peak" section added insider images from the upcoming volume. This preview generates excitement, a little taste of what's to come. A "staff" and "about" section were added, giving a tangible feel to our organization. Who are we and where did we come from? (answers: aliens, mars)

Most of all the site felt robust with a rotating header image and hover effects. It also opted for a modern all-around sans-serif typeface for text, usually more appropriate for web space.

And now Vanna, if you'll be so kind:

Our new site. Yes, the above image looks like the site from May, but it has really changed. She's been outfitted with a new engine, with more standards-based coding and individual style sheets for individual pages. She's also capable of growing per page, with a background that adapts to more content, requiring less Photoshop cuts.

We've nixed some pages: Upcoming Events and Contact. The events page wasn't very, er...upcoming. And the contact page just pointed to our location, email, and phone. The blog should address the former, the footer should address the latter.

And we've added the "Photo of the Week" page, with pictures from our very fabulous photographers. I'm hoping to figure out some RSS secrets, so users can opt-in to seeing the photo-of-the-week as it's published. We've got this in the blog, thanks to Blogger's automatic RSS-generator. I hope it can go further.

I'm still stripping and debugging and re-working, so shoot me an email if you've found a goofy patch of yearbook web. I'm at jschleus@uark.edu.

Also, my next job is to re-work the archive section, which I'll preview next week. I'd love feedback, so feel free to comment or shoot an email.

Labels: design, history, razorback, web design, yearbook