Jostens — Inventor & Creative Director (Digital Yearbook Augmentation)

Context
Yearbooks are cherished but seldom revisited, and many students appear only in a single portrait unless they’re active in teams or clubs. Platinum Equity asked us to challenge the status quo.

My Role
Creative Director on a three-person innovation team (business owner, dev lead, me). Led student/customer research, competitive scans, and concept invention; partnered with a senior UX researcher to synthesize insights and prototype.

Challenge
How might we make every student feel seen—and make the yearbook dynamic beyond the printed page?

Key moves

  • Deep research: Student interviews, school visits, and landscape review to map needs, moments, and constraints.

  • Concept: digital augmentation: Link each printed yearbook to unique, personal, and school-curated digital content (e.g., scan a portrait to reveal a student’s highlights from the year).

  • Feasibility spikes: Explored image recognition and identity-safe linking methods; documented risks and mitigations.

  • Prototyping & testing: Built interactive demos; ran confidential pilots with select schools; iterated on onboarding and content governance.

Outcomes

  • Signal: Strong qualitative response from students, educators, and sales teams; clear appetite for a hybrid print-digital experience.

  • Momentum: Concept became the keynote at the annual company meeting (~1,000 sales attendees) with supporting marketing assets (videos, demos).

  • Impact path: Opened a roadmap for follow-on initiatives and expanded my engagement with Platinum Equity.

  • Marketing Promo Video »

What I’d Do Next
Quantify engagement lift in pilots, refine privacy/permissions model, and test pricing/packaging with districts.

USABILITY TESTING

During COVID-19, I had to get very creative in testing. I did some remote testing but also tapped into my neighborhood to conduct in person sessions.

VIEWING EXPERIENCE

The viewing experience starting with scanning a QR code. Yearbook portraits and a large set of marked content was scannable to show additional content.

BRANDING + DESIGN

Partnered up a fantastic designers to create the branding and experience from brand archetype, mood boards through to layout and collateral.

CONTRIBUTION EXPERIENCE

We designed and built a web app to allow yearbook staff to capture content. Each student has a credential to upload photos to share their year.