The staff of the Ole Miss yearbook utilized different types of technology to set it apart from past editions this year. They implemented Augmented Reality technology and a new website in order to give Mississippi Magnolia a more current feel, while using art and meaningful stories to ensure the book would remain timeless.
Avery Gore, the book’s multimedia editor, linked videos to different stories in the book. By scanning one of the trigger images through an app called Aurasma, a video related to the story will play.
“The augmented reality videos really set this book apart,” editor-in-chief Cady Herring said. “It brings what used to be just paper into something that connects with the world digitally and gives it more depth.”
Herring said she developed a new website to spread awareness of the book and keep readership up.
“You find less and less college yearbooks,” she said. “No one reads them anymore. I think it’s vital to connect them to the present through technology.”
Staff members published stories online throughout the year, in addition to writing for the print edition. One web story even became so popular it found its way into the book as well.
Staff used Adobe programs to digitally create other elements of the yearbook. Herring and design editor Morgan Oberhausen created end pages that appear hand-drawn, but are still functional maps of Oxford and Lafayette County. Herring first drew out the maps on her iPad, making it look like paint strokes, and Oberhausen perfected the drawings into accurate maps.
Oberhausen said she used the theme of Mississippi Magnolia in order to gather her color palette for designing.
“We pulled so much inspiration for the design of the book from the essence of a magnolia,” Oberhausen said. “We actually created our color palette straight from nature by grabbing (colors) from pictures of magnolias and magnolia trees.”
Oberhausen based not only the color palette of the book off of the flower, but the entire design scheme.
“Like a magnolia, the design in the book is also meant to feel organic and classical with the use of watercolor and script font,” she said. “We wanted to create a book that is visually timeless.”
Not only is the magnolia the state flower and an obvious symbol of the university, but Herring used the flower’s life cycle to represent the university as a whole.
“There’s a time for new growth and then there’s also a time for the flower to die, but then it will always bloom again,” Herring said. “That’s a tribute to the beauty of what we can be as university.”
Herring and the editorial staff took every chance they had to be creative within the 368-page book.
“Some previous editors have said that never in your life will you get this much freedom to create something,” Herring said. “It’s the ultimate blank canvas. There are some restrictions of things you have to do every year, but you can do them in your own way.”
In addition to using technology to enhance the book, the staff included more poetry and art than in past years. Some pieces were written differently than a traditional journalistic story by using a first-person point of view. Herring said even the stories included every year got their own different spin.
“Something I really like about the Mr. and Miss Ole Miss stories is that the photos were taken in their homes,” Herring said. “I thought their homes were both so visually representative of who they are, and it was a way to do something different.”
Other stories in this year’s book include a spread about National Pan-Hellenic Council organizations, which have never been given a feature in the yearbook before, as well as a piece about Rebels who competed in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
“One thing I really wanted to do with this book was put meaningful stories that can connect with those who are reading it,” Herring said. “Whoever’s reading it might not share that memory, but they can share the feeling or a similar sentiment.”
Students can pick up copies of the yearbook from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. through Thursday in the Pavilion. Yearbooks are free for students who have paid both spring and fall tuition.
