Project Yearbook 2023
Universities post "congrats grads" carousels every May. I wanted to make a yearbook.
The Rutgers Yearbook Project is the Class of 2023 series I conceived, photographed, art-directed, filmed, edited, captioned, and published for @rutgersu, the main Rutgers University account. Seven graduating students. Seven custom carousels built like real yearbook spreads.
Each profile was its own world. A portrait against a red velvet backdrop with a hand-drawn signature. Notebook-paper organization pages. Washi-tape polaroids of favorite campus eats. Senior quotes, ultimate hot takes, favorite classes. A closing video where the student delivered their own parting message. A cover collage tied the seven together as a class.
I researched, moodboarded, wrote the questions like yearbook superlatives, and interviewed all seven students. A graphic designer executed under my art direction; I iterated with him through each spread.
Feature 1
CJ Macaayan, SAS '23 Political Science, on taking Rutgers day by day and following what actually motivates you instead of chasing what looks cool from the outside.
Feature 2
Heer Patel, SAS '23 Computer Science, on mentoring queer incoming freshmen and finding the community at Rutgers she didn't know was waiting.
Feature 3
Jarell Johnson, CCAS '23 Musical Theater, on Rutgers as home, the people who became family, and walking off stage one last time.
Feature 4
Teresa Osorio, CCAS '23 Biology, on heading to Johns Hopkins for a PhD in neuroscience and what founding Black & Latine Excellence in STEM at Rutgers-Camden taught her about who gets to belong.
Performance and context
Eight posts. 6.7K views, 6.5K likes — a near 1:1 like-to-view ratio. 128 comments, averaging 16 per post on an institutional account where most posts pull single digits. Three of the seven student profiles cleared 1K likes; Geneva Lew's profile drew the highest engagement at 33 comments and likes outpacing views.
When I was researching how peer universities handled graduation season, the pattern was consistent. Stock cap-and-gown overlays. "Congrats grads" sentiment reels. School-color confetti. Hashtag aggregators reposting student selfies. The conventions were template-driven and treated graduates as a single anonymous cohort.
I wanted the opposite. Each carousel was built around one student. The format borrowed from a piece of physical Americana grads actually keep. Photography was original portraiture, not stock or borrowed selfies. Captions came from the students themselves through interviews. The closing video gave each grad the last word.
The 1:1 like rate is the number I read as proof. People weren't scrolling past. They were stopping, swiping, and showing up.
